"A well-placed source tells us that HP is currently looking to rid itself of Palm as soon as possible, and that Amazon is the closest to finalizing the deal, among a handful of contenders," Devindra Hardawar reports for VentureBeat.
"It's worth noting that former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein, who now holds a vague 'product innovation' role at HP's Personal Services Group, joined Amazon's board late last year," Hardawar reports. "The Kindle Fire is powered by Android, but it's been heavily customized by Amazon to the point where you can barely tell. By purchasing the remnants of Palm, Amazon would have free rein to redesign webOS to its own liking, and it would be able to further differentiate its Kindle devices from the slew of Android tablets in the market."
Hardawar reports, "HP paid $1.2 billion for Palm in 2010, but Amazon will end up spending a fraction of that if the deal goes through. Given just how badly the TouchPad failed, HP will likely offer what's left of Palm at a major discount, especially since Amazon woudn't be interested in resuscitating now extinct webOS hardware."
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: That little redheaded stepchild of a mobile OS is going to get whiplash from being shuffled between foster homes. At least Amazon would be quite a bit less dysfunctional than the last two nightmares.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "GetMeOnTop" for the heads up.]
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