If you think somewhat like me, you no doubt saw HP’s recent acquisition of Palm as rather sudden and somewhat “off-the-cuff” so to speak. It seemed like HP was making a desperate, poorly planned grab for something to help their ailing and often forgotten mobile aspirations.
But a new account written by BoyGenius and citing a few of his inside ninjas shows that HP actually fought pretty hard for what is now theres. Shaving the participants from 16 possible buyers down to the final four wasn’t as hard as one would suspect — most of those in talks with Palm walked before the talks barely had a chance to take off.
Those final four determined companies (names unknown) decided to duke it out. If you think about it, it’s not actually all that exciting. But it goes to show that at least someone thought Palm was worth a decent wad of cash. Looking at the longer rendition posted by BGR highlights a very eager HP.
Now all we can hope for is some killer HP devices packing a revamped, updated, and tweaked webOS that hopefully gets updated a lot, lot faster.
BGR
One would think that a company that went through bankruptcy, liquidation, and an online only resurrection would be a much tighter run and more consumer friendly ship. If you happened to be uttering those same words with Circuity City in mind, you would be oh so wrong. It appears that their quality control and shipping policies still suck. An anonymous tipster of the Consumerist recounted his less than favorable encounter with the new Circuit City’s fine display of quality and consumer confidence building traits. Long story short, the tipster purchased a TV mount which came *kinda* wrapped and in good ‘ol Circuit City style, missing half of the contents. Of course, refunding the poor customer and sending him a new mount would be far too easy, so, they payed for a second mount with the added donations supposedly being refunded once the old mount is received back at C.C. central. What does this teach us folks? Once a lousy consumer electronics giant goes bankrupt and out of business, no amount of “newness” is going to help. Seems as if it is still wise to avoid Circuity City like the plague. You agree?
Source: Consumerist
While the GM “made” Chevy Volt isn’t technically a gadget as it is much larger and is usually be looked upon as a vehicle, it is still a fine piece of electroinc technology that will *hopefully* at some point grace the public at large. While GM has announced today their plans to go through and file Chapter 11 bankruptcy, already concerns as to whether the Volt will ever make it to market are beginning to surface. The Volt is now several years into promise after promise by GM to deliver the electric/hybrid vehicle in a respectable amount of time. Several years later and we are still looking at a late 2010 release at best. Is the Volt dead? What about GM?
Seems as if the Apple/Pystar drama just took another turn for the worst (if you’re on camp Pystar that is). Seems as if Pystar is having a bit of money problems seeping through their secretive layer and has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, meaning any “secret financial backers” will not be publicly known financial backers. Sadly, if Pystar goes under, one brave force that finally stood up to Apple’s monopolistic ways (yes I own a Mac and yes I like it) is now gone strengthening Apple’s every present “tough guy” image. Still, there is a bit of a bright future. Even though Pystar may be dead, OpeniMac and Russian Mac (translated) are the latest 3rd party Mac OS X machines that are ready to pick up the sales slack if in fact Pystar bits the big hard digital one. Are you for or against more hardware options for Mac OS X software? Do you like the choices that would be available, or do you feel that by keeping the environment nice and closed is what makes Apple products so…Apple (you know, meticulously designed and more or less aesthetically flawless)?
Source: Crunch Gear, Image Source
- February 10, 2009 7:55 pm
Satellite radio is something that just hasn’t quite caught on. At the beginning of the whole ordeal several years ago were two companies vying for your satellite radio money: XM and Sirius. Since the birth of satellite radio uptake hasn’t been exactly fast. I mean, even though you get much better sound quality, choices, and convenience, few people want to pay for a service that they can get for free. Terrestrial radio while being the opposite of the mentioned satellite features still is by far the winner when it comes to radio listener numbers. Satellite radio providers were hoping that their benefits would justify the cost and customers would flock to them in herds. Well the herds never game and by the summer of 2007, both companies were bleeding money. A solution was needed. How did they fix the bleeding of money? In order to stop the massive cash losses, Sirius and XM decided to merge. They started the merging in ’07, however, the FCC took their sweet time approving the merger. Finally in July of 2008, the FCC finally approved the merger. Although, because of the massive delay, the cash loss had apparently already damaged both companies to the brink of almost closing them. According to the New York Times, Sirius XM is preparing bankruptcy plans in case they do need to file for chapter 7 protection. Note exactly a good thing. What happens to the troubled satellite provider if they do in fact file for Chapter 7? Well, for starters all of S/XM’s equity would be wiped clean. They would get a breath of fresh air as expensive contracts can be renegotiated or even killed completely including hot deals such as ESPN and Howard Stern just to name a couple. Clearly it wasn’t “one” factor that is brining down satellite radio but a culmination of events that combined are creating an unstoppable force that is literally crushing them. Who knows, maybe this time next year when you someone mention the words “satellite radio”, you will think of a time when terrestrial radio wasn’t alone.
Source: Alley Insider, AFP
The death of Circuit City has saddened some while making others giddy like little school girls. Why? When any store goes out of business usually a fire sale marks the last few days to week of the stores existence. In the case of Circuit City, many have been greatly disappointed as the “deals” have been rip offs. Take for example this current “bargain” at Circuit City. An HP DV4305US on sale for a mere $705.46…down from $829.96! Talk about a deal. It gets even more ridiculous when the specs are known. Continue on…
