HP CEO: Palm could end up a ‘sub-brand’ of the company
Given the way HP has treated acquisitions like VoodooPC and Compaq, this should come as no surprise -- but CEO Mark Hurd is at it again with comments about his company's recent Palm acquisition to German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine , saying that the brand could "move into the background" and become a "sub-brand," ostensibly the same as Envy and iPAQ (he gives Pavilion as a specific example). From a marketing alignment perspective, that makes sense -- though it assumes that the HP brand is stronger than Palm's in the target demographics that they're looking to sell into
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: assumption, ceo, compaq, demographics, frankfurter, hurd, mark hurd, markhurd, safe, target, the-background
HP says it’s in the smartphone market, after all
HP CEO Mark Hurd certainly caused a few sad faces yesterday when he told investors and analysts that HP " didn't buy Palm to be in the smartphone business ," and it now the company is trying to walk that back a little -- rest easy, folks, because there are definintely more webOS smartphones on the way. Apparently what Hurd was really trying to say was that HP is excited about using webOS as the foundation for all types of smaller web-connected devices , and smartphones are just a part of that universe -- a part HP intends to pursue
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: backbone, engadget, faces, faces-yesterday, footprint, hewlett-packard, hewlettpackard, investors, mark hurd, phone, reach, rest, smartphones, the-smartphone
HP CEO: "We didn’t buy Palm to be in the smartphone business"
You'd think spending a billion dollars on a smartphone company would indicate a desire to, say, make and sell smartphones, but you'd apparently be thinking wrong: HP CEO Mark Hurd just told investors at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch tech conference that his company "didn't buy Palm to be in the smartphone business," and that he's not going to "spend billions of dollars trying to go into the smartphone business; that doesn't in any way make any sense." Yes, that sound you're hearing is Jon Rubinstein's heart breaking into a million tiny pieces. According to Hurd, HP was actually more interested in Palm's IP -- specifically webOS, which he wants to put on "tens of millions of HP small form-factor web-connected devices." Sure, that makes sense, and it lines up perfectly with HP's plan to " double down on webOS " and put it on everything from netbooks and slates to printers , but hey, Mark? You should really look into the smartphone business when you get a second, okay?
Categories: Mobile Phone Tags: america, bankofamerica, billions, entry, hewlett-packard, hewlettpackard, lynch, mark hurd, netbooks, operating, pieces, printers, smartphone, tech-conference, tens