HP CEO Mark Hurd speaking at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch

We didn’t buy Palm to be in the smartphone business.

If you don’t want to push your smartphone business than don’t buy a company whose main asset is a smartphone OS. An HP spokesperson later clarified that they will be investing in smartphones but they’ll also be putting webOS on printers and tablets — the only way I can see HP’s acquisition of Palm as a success is if HP goes full force with webOS handsets, anything less will seem like wasted money.