I'm astonished that they aren't even going to bother selling it off. With the Google/Motorola merger, surely one of the Android partners has to be feeling a little uncomfortable right now. Hell, Motorola was always rumored to be working on its own JS-based OS because it didn't like the position of relying only on Android.
As a whole, I don't see much value. Why would anyone be interested in purchasing a failed-to-launch tablet product when Android tablets sell well and the software is free (outside of patent deals with trolls)? The distinction of having your own software didn't work for HP, so why should it work for Samsung/HTC/etc?
However! I think the big sale is yet to come. When HP bought Palm, they acquired their 1,600-ish patents as well. Palm was a very early player in the smartphone market, so it's conceivable that this portfolio contains some attractive property. Having paid $1.2 billion for Palm, either selling this patent portfolio outright, or taking the Lodsys route seems plausible. Given the heat around patent acquisition right now, they'd probably do pretty well; maybe even exceeding their original purchase price.
"Why would anyone be interested in purchasing a failed-to-launch tablet product when Android tablets sell well and the software is free"
a) webOS is an OS that has been shipped on much more than just this latest tablet. It's a fantastic OS, but has been hampered by poor execution by Palm & HP.
Yes. Palm patents have the potential of creating another Nortel type situation. That is possibly a part of "optimization of webOS revenue". Would be interesting to see who gets a hold of this pile.
HP already has a hold of this pile. I wouldn't just assume that because they're exiting the hardware business they have no (future) need for that portfolio. Heck, if anything, they'll have to hold on to those if they hope to license webOS to other handset makers (the latest rumor).
It is hard to imagine why they will sit on the Palm portfolio without hardware business considering their new focus is to become IBM/SAP like - enterprisey. IBM for e.g. sold 1000 patents to Google short while ago.
And besides, I am not certain webOS licensing is going to go very far. We will see..
There's definitely a lot of strategy being reviewed inside HP right now. They have a number of options available to them, some of which include licensing the entire platform, or even specific patents. Having paid $1.2bn for Palm, and having observed two large patent portfolios sell for a number that is 10x that, I'd imagine that there is at least some consideration being given to exiting while the market for mobile patents is hot. Licensing is a much longer play, but it's also fraught with the risk of having to enforce the portfolio with litigation, not to mention the threat of patent reform.
Sell what off? They're keeping WebOS (at least for now) not sure what kind of manufacturing Palm does but its likely small and something that HP could continue to use.
I dont' doubt HP is still going to build Tablets and phones they're just likely going to be Android.
Who would buy it? HTC or Samsung? Nokia? The OEMs are worse at making OSes and dev ecosystems than even HP which has experience making a UNIX based OS. And it's not as if buying WebOS will stop the patent attacks, in fact, it may increase them. They would simply be better off with Android/Windows 8 for tablets
As Nokia's CEO said, it's a battle of ecosystems now, not devices anymore. Maybe RIM's next, either for a takeover, or a failure.
An unnamed source claimed something that the article itself says there's a bunch of problems with this idea and we are supposed to believe it? It was more likely a rumour that someone at Palm was putting around to try and push the price up, and the "source" believed it.
