Palm's hardware and software is on life support (Image: Palm)
A rumour is now circulating that HP could now cancel its planned PC spin-off after former eBay CEO Meg Whitman has now been announced as the new CEO of the company. This could also mean that Palm has a chance to continue to live on, if Whitman doesn’t decide to spin or axe webOS’ hardware division.
According to Digitimes, the fear of HP’s spinoff plans have pushed people to redirect orders of HP laptops to rivals Acer, ASUS, Dell and Lenovo. In fact, Acer is reported to have higher than expected orders from its partners.
Ouch, that’s got to hurt.
So, what does this mean for Palm? Well, since it is part of the Consumer PC business unit, it will most likely be saved if Whitman reverses the idea from her predecessor, Leo Apotheker. Apotheker, CEO for just 11 months, has seen the stock plummet down to 47 percent and was from the business computers unit, and hence could explain why he was pushing the idea.
But that’s an if. She could still continue to follow the path of Apotheker, or even just sell of Palm altogether.
Palm is on life support, and its future is now in the hands of person whose background is internet auctions. It really needs some grace of God to survive.