HP Sees Big Revenue Gains, More Palm-Like Acquisitions in the Future
HP revealed its first quarter results this week, reporting 13% revenue growth. And with its planned acquisition of Palm underway, the computer giant is clearly doing something right.
By Kit Eaton 1 minute Read
HP's revenues reached a whopping $30.8 billion, which is yet another strong indicator from the IT industry that the global economy is on the uptick from the lows of the recession. It's also a sign that HP's mix of consumer products is finding the right customers.
CEO Mark Hurd, speaking to analysts during the financial
report, also indicated that HP is going to carry on exploring acquisition
opportunities, since he "continues to be excited" about the
opportunities in PC tech, storage, networks, security and so on. Which
means we may see HP making more surprise purchases, possibly to
reinforce its Palm-based smartphone experiment.
This news puts HP's acquisition of Palm into a new light. With strong performance from its core business, HP's surprise move on the PDA/smartphone maker is not a desperate attempt to shore up HP's income; instead it's a bold expansionist step. When the company canceled its hyped Windows 7 tablet PC, you'd have been forgiven for thinking HP was running scared from a market that Apple seemed to have already sewn up at the first attempt. But now it seems like it was a truly tactical move to give HP time to incorporate the UI advantages of Palm's WebOS (the only truly innovative thing behind its sort-of failed Pre and Pixi phones). Recently we learned that HP was also going to leverage WebOS into other HP devices like printers, so there're good odds that HP's tablet will resurface later this year complete with a re-worked or tablet-optimized installation of Palm's operating system.
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I'm covering the science/tech/generally-exciting-and-innovative beat for Fast Company. Follow me on Twitter, or Google+ and you'll hear tons of interesting stuff, I promise. I've also got a PhD, and worked in such roles as professional scientist and theater technician...thankfully avoiding jobs like bodyguard and chicken shed-cleaner (bonus points if you get that reference!)
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