HP Reportedly Sought $1.2 Billion for Palm and webOS
Hewlett-Packard spent the majority of 2011 chasing its tail and getting nowhere in the process. Maybe 2012 will be better, and in some respects, it almost has to be. On the fail scale, it's hard to top shopping your PC division when it's the biggest in the world, buying a British software firm for $12 billion as part of a shift in strategy by a soon-to-be-ousted CEO, and open-sourcing webOS after spending $1.2 billion acquiring Palm a year prior.
It gets better (worse?). According to new information obtained by VentureBeat, the reason HP couldn't find a suitor for Palm is because its asking price was simply too high. Inexplicably, HP was asking $1.2 billion for Palm, the exact same price it paid one year ago before bungling the acquisition, and then somehow expecting not to take a loss after the whole TouchPad fiasco. Was HP really oblivious to Palm's lost value?
Credit: ABC Corp.
"At one point, HP’s team tried to pitch the sale to Facebook but was practically laughed out of the room," VentureBeat reports.
HP might have lowered its price after failing to find a suitor willing to bail them out for $1.2 billion, but realistically, Palm would probably have be offered at half the price HP paid for it, if not less. Chalk it up to just another silly decision by HP during a year the company would like to forget.
It gets better (worse?). According to new information obtained by VentureBeat, the reason HP couldn't find a suitor for Palm is because its asking price was simply too high. Inexplicably, HP was asking $1.2 billion for Palm, the exact same price it paid one year ago before bungling the acquisition, and then somehow expecting not to take a loss after the whole TouchPad fiasco. Was HP really oblivious to Palm's lost value?
Credit: ABC Corp.
"At one point, HP’s team tried to pitch the sale to Facebook but was practically laughed out of the room," VentureBeat reports.
HP might have lowered its price after failing to find a suitor willing to bail them out for $1.2 billion, but realistically, Palm would probably have be offered at half the price HP paid for it, if not less. Chalk it up to just another silly decision by HP during a year the company would like to forget.
