When HP bought Palm for a cool $1.2 billion last year, Palm fans rejoiced that their smartphone manufacturer of choice had been saved from certain doom.

However, speaking at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch technology conference, HP CEO Mark Hurd told attendees that the company "didn't buy Palm to be in the smartphone business."

As hearts broke, Hurd hammered the point home. He said, HP aren't going to "spend billions of dollars trying to go into the smartphone business; that doesn't in any way make any sense."

WebOS was worth $1.2 billion?

HP was more interested in Palm's intellectual property, specifically the WebOS operating system found on Palm handsets.

The company hopes to transpose WebOS to its host of small web-connected appliances.


Concerned that the wrong impression had been given, HP's spokeswoman later clarified the comments:



While all hope for future Palm handsets is not lost, it's pretty clear where HP's focus lies.

Via ZDNet and Engadget