Rumour: Amazon eyeing smartphone sector via Palm acquisition
by Steven Mostyn - Sep 30 2011, 11:37
Where next for Amazon's march towards global domination? Image: Palm/HP.
Having already cornered the eReader market with the Kindle, and preparing to assault the iPad’s dominance with the Kindle Fire tablet, could Amazon also soon be a gladiator in the smartphone arena?
Specifically, an apparently well-informed industry insider has told VentureBeat (VB) that Amazon is deep in discussion with Hewlett-Packard (HP) regarding the possible purchase of smartphone division Palm.
Although currently nothing more than spurious rumour, any such acquisition of Palm would likely include the company’s acclaimed webOS mobile operating system, which has been utilized in HP’s now defunct TouchPad tablet and other smartphone devices.
It’s worth noting that former Palm chief executive officer Jon Rubenstein, who now serves as head of product innovation at HP and is also a board member at Amazon, has recently indicated that Amazon would be a good business fit.
“I would say Amazon would certainly make a great partner, because they have a lot of characteristics that would help them expand the webOS ecosystem,” he told technology blog This Is My Next during the summer.
“As to whether there’s been discussions or not… that’s obviously not something I’m going to comment about,” he added, which we’re interpreting as a thinly veiled ‘yes, there have been discussions’.
When approached for an official response regarding the story, neither HP nor Amazon was willing to offer anything more tangible than the stock standard ‘we don’t comment on rumors and speculation’.
HP splashed a massive $1.2 billion USD on the purchase of Palm back in 2010, after which it channeled webOS and the company’s significant mobile know-how into the development of the TouchPad tablet and Veer smartphone.
The TouchPad tablet and webOS platform were formally retired in August due to poor sales connected to the much-hyped mobile computer, which had its card punched soon after Best Buy revealed it had sold only 25,000 units of its 270,000 allocation.
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