HP: We Didn't Buy Palm to be in the Phone Market

HP surprised everyone when it swooped in and purchased Palm for more than $1.2 billion. However, despite dropping more than a couple of pretty pennies on the smartphone company, it seems HP isn't even interested in that side of Palm.

When HP announced that it would be purchasing Palm, a lot of people speculated that the company didn't give a toss about smartphones and was actually much more interested in Palm's WebOS operating system. Indeed, it seems they were right. HP boss Mark Hurd just yesterday revealed to investors that he "didn't buy Palm to be in the smartphone business." Hurd went on to say that it just doesn't make sense for HP to spend billions of dollars trying to break into the smartphone business.

So what does Hurd want with Palm? Its IP, of course!

We didn’t buy Palm to be in the smartphone business. And I tell people that, but it doesn’t seem to resonate well. We bought it for the IP. The WebOS is one of the two ground-up pieces of software that is built as a web operating environment…We have tens of millions of HP small form factor web-connected devices…Now imagine that being a web-connected environment where now you can get a common look and feel and a common set of services laid against that environment. That is a very value proposition.

Basically, HP dropped more that a billion dollars to buy Palm but doesn't really care about smartphone. Instead they want to put WebOS on pretty much every small form factor web-connected device they make. Poor Palm.

Read more on ZDNet.