What does HP want with Palm?

patents?

"anyone doing anything interesting in the mobile computing [sic] needs a big stack of patents to back them up, or risk being out-litigated by the competition"

Good to see patents fostering innovation and competition isn't it?

Palm Hotsync worked so well

because PalmOS didn't have files, it had tables of records, with each row having a last-updated date. This meant hotsync was a doddle to just truck through all the tables and copy rows up/down depending on the last-update dates on the device & desktop. How the app worked had no impact, unless it really screwed with the table paradigm, which of course, some apps had to do. You didn't buy those again. (hey, I used "paradigm" correctly in an El Reg posting!)

If you move to files, with records being opaque chunks of bytes, then the app has to get into the act, and we all know 3rd parties can't write complicated stuff like this and actually have it work.

Now if only Palm had hardware where the damned touchscreen could stay calibrated more than 20 minutes, and the battery life didn't go from 2 weeks on my III down to maybe 5 or 6 hours on my Tx, I'd still be buying Palm....

F'ing awesome software, shite hardware. Kind of the anti-Microsoft, there....

@AC

Not just anti-M$: anti-Apple, too, if you consider the unholy mess that is iTunes with its inconsistent behaviour and user-unfriendly interface. Then there's the nonsense of locking in users to this poor excuse for software, and claiming the right to interfere with customers that prefer to use alternative products, by screwing up software settings.

Here's what Turd was thinking

Since Mark Turd and HP just completed their purchase of 3Com, the next thought had to be, "We should finish what 3Com started". The thought after that was, "We can get Palm dirt cheap over buying RIM, HTC, etc". That's the HP model. Don't buy the top tier in a new or emerging market, but purchase the cheapest option that still gets them to middle of the pack (or just below). So glad I no longer work for that fucktard and his employee-hating execs.

An ex-Compaq employee writes

The best non-Psion PDA I ever had was an HP Jornada 720 (netbook precursor). iPAQs were useless in comparison.

"HP is too deep in the pocket of Microsoft to be looking at Palm as anything other than a short-term gain"

That would have been undeniable before Vista. But didn't Vista change that picture somewhat for the desktop, and thus for Microsoft in general? Doesn't Windows 7/Office (20)10's failure to do anything worthwhile that prior versions couldn't simply prolong the desktop agony for HP and MS? And without the desktop leverage, how much stranglehold does MS have over HP, or has it now turned the other way round - HP could threaten to have another more serious go at thin client with their corporate customers, and where would that leave Bill's empire? HP probably won't try it, but primarily because their top management are clueless.

In the non-desktop sector, the same not-reliably-dominant factor applies to Windows CE or whatever they call it this year, only more so. WinCE was meant to be for PDAs, phones, and even consumer electronics such as set top boxes. Who can name a set top box (preferably two) based on WinCE? Who can name an interesting phone based on WinCE that doesn't have someone else's home made GUI layered on top? Windows CE has had it, it's just a matter of time, unless a miracle occurs.

"Surely Microsoft have never threatened to remove or reduce discounts to resellers for shipping a different operating system on hardware than Microsofts"

I'm not so sure about that (where's the sarcasm icon). I'm pretty sure joint marketing funding, cheap training, access to technology pre-previews and stuff like that starts to disappear when a PC (or especially netbook) builder starts getting serious about non-Windows OSes.

WEB OS

If HP keeps the Palm brand alive and releases a WEB OS PRE or something similar onto AT&T's network, that will be my next upgrade. This Blackberry is pissing me off daily.