HP’s Palm buyout agreed

MAKER OF EXPENSIVE PRINTER INK HP's acquisition of Palm has finally been approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

HP's determination take over Palm's WebOS bore fruit when the merger was approved last Friday. The merger agreement was dated from 28 April and Palm stockholders approved it late last week. Both companies are expected to wrap up the acquisition on 1 July.

Back in April, Palm was spotted using Goldman Sachs and Quattrone's Qatalyst Partners to help it find a potential buyer for the ailing business. HTC and Lenovo were put forward as possible buyers but no one saw HP coming out of left field to acquire Palm.

We reported in June that HP bought Palm for its WebOS but wasn't interested in its smartphone business.

"The WebOS is one of the two ground-up pieces of software that is built as a web operating environment... We have tens of millions of HP small form factor web-connected devices," said HP boss Mark Hurd.

"Now imagine that being a web-connected environment where now you can get a common look and feel and a common set of services laid against that environment," he continued.

No sooner had Hurd made his statement than the company announced a series of printers with Palm's WebOS integrated. The printers have unique email addresses and can print from any device in the cloud. µ