I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Strategic Missteps and HP’s Leadership

  • Many see HP’s Palm acquisition as a “check the mobile box” move without true commitment to win: big price tag, but no multi‑year investment plan like Google’s.
  • Commenters argue HP in 2010 was already behind iOS/Android; success would have required accepting years of losses to build an ecosystem.
  • Strong criticism of HP’s board and CEOs (pre‑ and post‑Palm) for chasing “software & services” narratives, short‑term stock gains, and bungled acquisitions (Palm, Autonomy).
  • Broader theme: rise of generic, non‑technical executives who treat “management” as industry‑agnostic; HP contrasted with firms where technically literate leadership fared better.

webOS: Technical Merits vs Practical Limits

  • webOS is widely praised for its card-based multitasking, gestures, and overall UX; many say iOS and Android later adopted its ideas.
  • Detailed discussion clarifies early iOS barely allowed background work; Android had multitasking but weaker task‑switching UI. webOS ran multiple live processes and made this visible.
  • Others counter that end users don’t buy on “true multitasking,” and early webOS paid a price in performance and battery, especially given underpowered hardware and outdated WebKit/JS stacks.
  • Mixed views on modern webOS on LG TVs: some find it snappy and elegant, others call it slow and ad‑laden.

TouchPad Launch, Pricing, and Market Reality

  • Consensus that TouchPad’s launch was botched: iPad‑level pricing with inferior hardware, immature OS, and tiny app catalog.
  • Hardware reportedly constrained by HP’s demand that Palm be cash‑neutral and by Apple’s dominance of suppliers; some call it “leftover iPad parts.”
  • Fire‑sale at $99 triggered huge demand; disagreement whether this showed latent interest in webOS or just for a cheap 10" tablet.
  • Several argue the tablet market only works as an extension of a phone ecosystem; building a standalone platform like webOS (or Nokia’s Maemo/MeeGo) was structurally doomed.

Blame, Responsibility, and Article Reception

  • Many question the author’s claim that an 8‑week medical absence explains a $1.2B write‑off; decisions on hardware, pricing, and readiness would have been locked in months earlier.
  • Debate over his responsibility as CTO: some note a “bus factor of 1” is itself a failure; others say no delegate can sway a hostile CEO/board.
  • Multiple readers find the piece self‑serving and stylistically “LLM/LinkedIn‑ish,” culminating in a plug for his decision framework, undermining its credibility.

Nostalgia and the Lost Third Platform

  • Numerous commenters fondly recall Palm Pre/Pixi/TouchPad and the developer community; some still own devices.
  • Persistent sense that webOS (and Nokia’s platforms) represent “paths not taken” that might have yielded a credible third mobile OS—if not for leadership and timing.