Sad that I never got to nail her. Now I never will.  

Just over a year ago, HP 'won' the bidding war for Palm. Nearly a year ago, HP formally acquired Palm -- "not for smartphones" -- for $1. 2 billion.

Since then? Not shit. Despite the most glorious press release:

The combination of HP’s global scale and financial strength with Palm’s unparalleled webOS platform will enhance HP’s ability to participate more aggressively in the fast-growing, highly profitable smartphone and connected mobile device markets. Palm’s unique webOS will allow HP to take advantage of features such as true multitasking and always up-to-date information sharing across applications.

Any more aggressively and I'm gonna fall asleep in my chair.

If memory serves, the past year has been a busy one for HP. The details are hazy but I believe the former CEO never returned to work after a night of boozing and skeezing with Charlie Sheen and some guy from the IMF.

A bunch of other execs left.

And the stock has had a long, slow but steady decline. About -23% since a year ago today:

Oh, and they may or may not have a working CEO. Too soon to tell.

And if you look really really hard, you might find a Palm/HP/webOS device at AT&T. Though I suspect you won't look really really hard. And should you, I'm convinced you won't buy it.

Palm insists on living the life of Amiga. Again and again.

Fact is, despite what the people of Palm have told us, again and again, there was never anything special about the platform. The smartphones never looked that good. The OS wasn't as good as iOS; not even close. Android has Google money. Blackberry is superior and with a large installed base. The new Windows Phone has, well, Windows money. You can still buy Nokia

So when the head of HP Europe boasts about the (still) upcoming TouchPad:

Since HP hasn't yet taken my advice, I'll repeat myself.

Your problems are many and diverse and your CEO will probably be gone before Carol Bartz is out at Yahoo. Will new guy give Palm/webOS any love?

Here's what you do: Call up Ballmer. Tell him you will make Windows Phone devices. Windows Phone/Windows XX tablets. And, as before, be BFFs for all things Windows. All he has to do is take Palm off your hands for a couple billion or so. Everybody wins. Or at least, HP can stop losing.

I know, I know. The rumors are flying over Microsoft officially buying Nokia -- for what, $40 or so billion -- even though they have unofficially purchased them for far less.

For Nokia's sake, I hope Microsoft does acquire them. Yes, they vanish into the bowels of Borg Microsoft. I just think that's preferable to a fate where they are fully responsible for sales, for returns, for operating an actual, you know, business, while being fully dependent upon Microsoft for their future, for their very livelihood.

Except, for Microsoft, I think an even better acquisition would be Palm. Well, perhaps not better, but certainly more cost effective. After all, Palm, which apparently God himself has decreed shall wander the smartphone wars desert for years, was acquired by HP for about 1/5 of what Microsoft just paid for Skype.

Since that acquisition, well, essentially nothing has happened. Yes, a few of us have heard of the HP Veer. Still, no one is buying "Palm" devices, HP is doing almost nothing with the Palm webOS. Nor do they appear to know what to do with it. Or, if they do, they do not appear capable of executing on that vision.

Worse, HP is having its own structural problems and the new CEO appears ill-equipped to turn around the company organically. A series of cuts, various sales of 'non-strategic' assets and one or two large 'strategic acquisitions' designed exclusively, let's be honest here, to achieve nothing other than satisfy whatever vaguely worded benchmarks and bonus structures are spelled out in his employment agreement.

Per Bloomberg:

Hewlett-Packard CEO Leo Apotheker told top executives that he’s bracing for “another tough quarter” in the July period and urged deputies to “watch every penny and minimise all hiring.” In a memo obtained by Bloomberg (dated May 4), Apotheker said the company’s existing headcount plans are “unaffordable given the pressures on our business.”

There is something that helps him: sell Palm.

Fact is, a year later and basically nothing has been done with Palm. And new CEO can get what? $1.5 billion? $3 billion? Or better? Hard to pass that deal up.

But why would Microsoft be interested? What value does Palm offer Microsoft? Other than some patents? Some internal expertise? The brand name?

There is one more thing, of course. The biggest thing of all. A promise. A commitment: The eternal life of Windows. More than anything, that is Ballmer's vision, his mission, his reason for going into work every morning despite being *the richest employee* on the planet. Windows everywhere. Which can't happen without HP's capitulation.

Ballmer could be persuaded to pay something silly for Palm, say $5-10 billion. In return for overpaying for Palm, Ballmer secures an agreement that HP (once again) embraces all things Windows across all HP devices?

Anybody here, seen my old friend Palm? Can you tell me where he's gone? Palm freed a lot of people but it seems the good they die young. You know, I just looked around and Palm's gone.

All right, HP. I realize your ex-CEO got caught with his pants down. Your curent CEO is involved in some nasty lawsuit and/or on the run, and you're a big company with a proud history and lots of smart people all singularly focused on the grand world-beating, paradigm-shifting mission of getting everyone on the planet to use high-margin ink. 

Still, shouldn't you have done *anything* with Palm? Anything? It's been an entire year now since you acquired Palm and its webOS for smartphones (and maybe tablets and other things) for a cool $1.2 billion. Where is it? Remember this statement from the initial announcement?

The combination of HP’s global scale and financial strength with Palm’s unparalleled webOS platform will enhance HP’s ability to participate more aggressively in the fast-growing, highly profitable smartphone and connected mobile device markets. Palm’s unique webOS will allow HP to take advantage of features such as true multitasking and always up-to-date information sharing across applications.

Yet for all your scale and strength and Palm's "unparalleled" webOS platform...nothing. Oh, sure, once a quarter it seems that the one exec from Palm who stayed with HP comes out and talks big plans. And, yes, I realize there's that crappy HP Veer coming out later this month. 

Is that all you got? Really?

In the year plus since you bought Palm, Apple has again redefined the market for connected mobile devices. Android has captured the top spot in this rapidly expanding, highly dynamic market. And taken such handset makers like Samsung, Sony, Motorola and others along for the ride.

Big, lumbering Microsoft released a smartphone platform, Windows Phone, that may actually be superior to webOS! And they have developed a tidy little app and media ecosystem while you have dithered. Plus there's that whole Nokia alliance.

Even Blackberry has managed to grow, to release some solid devices and has offered glimpses at least of its future.

While HP, er Palm, er webOS has done what? 

My guess is you probably have convinced yourself that with your "scale" and "financial strength" you can just bully your way into this market. The market that represents the *future* of personal computing. 

You are dead wrong. And I suspect that when you finally do show up for a fight, and get your ass knocked down on the ground, you'll quickly give up, and vanish.

Firstly, you're no longer all that relevant. Everyone's gone to the cloud. PCs are rapidly becoming a legacy industry. Apple, yes, that Apple, has gotten bigger. Google is taunting Microsoft. It's a whole new world.

Perhaps you believe there's room for still one more smartphone platform. You know, be that "third" operating system after Apple's iOS and Google's Android. Heard it all before, HP. That willful refusal to acknowledge Windows Phone or Blackberry/QNX or MeeGo or Symbian or any Linux variant. 

Or even Samsung's Bada.

You ought to think of Bada, HP. Because that's what Palm could have become had you not buried the company in your basement. And I can assure you, you are no match even for Bada.

Consider that Samsung is a *critical* supplier of smartphone screens and hardware for multiple smartphone handset makers. Including Apple. Consider that they have global distribution, relations with most carriers. Oh, and they're the big dog of Android smartphones.

Even Bada, which only a few people in the US have probably even heard of, is kicking Palm's ass.

In the first quarter of this year, just over 100 million smartphones were shipped. Anything with Palm and/or webOS was too tiny to measure and bundled with "Other". Not Samsung's Bada. They shipped 3.5 million units, per research firm Canalys. Most of which stayed near home, in Asia -- which is the world's fastest growing smartphone region. More smartphones are sold in Asia then EMEA and far more than North America.

Don't fool yourself, though, HP. Bada isn't just some middling platform in Asia. They are moving into Europe as well:

‘Samsung’s own operating system development, combined with the branding and investment in its Wave smart phones at mid-tier prices, has led to good uptake in developed markets, such as France, the UK and Germany.'

While you've played with yourself, in less than a year, giant Samsung has not only become king of Android, but they've made Bada a bigger platform than webOS and have built a sustainable ecosystem.

About 15,000 apps. Over 100 million app downloads. And growing. And ready access to some of the best hardware. And "scale and financial strength."

What you set out to do with Palm, HP, can be done. Was done. It was done by Samsung. Using an organic operating system. Not some $1 billion plus acqusition. 

There was a time, a brief moment in the early days of the smartphone wars, when Palm and its webOS platform had a chance to thrive. I believe that time has passed. And the few Palm devices that get released into the wild, will quickly vanish. Kept merely as collectibles.

HP picked up Palm for chump change way back in the summer of 2009. Apparently, the Palm guys have been meticulous about filling out all that corporate paperwork, segmenting their HP 401Ks and learning the joys of the HP Way. Because 7 or so months later, about the same time it takes to generate 43 million Tribbles -- or Androids -- and they still haven't done shit. And the existing Palm smartphones, if you could find one, still suck.

However, later this week, at CES, HP and Palm will have several big announcements. Expect at least one, probably three, new handsets, a personal (not communal) tablet, and big talk about how Palm's webOS will go into printers, calculators and sundry other of those computing devices we file under: the Internet of things.

I for one...

I'm sorry? What? It's not January 9? Not CES, the big international computingi trade show that the entire press covers? No, it's a month later? In February? At an exclusive event? By exclusive you mean, they're not gonna let a lot of people in, sort of like how critics are banned from early screenings of every Nicholas Cage movie?

Oy.

Well, anyway. While I expect HP to bury Palm deep in the bowels of its caves, forcing them to mine for crystals that make them hostile and aggressive, I retain high hopes for Palm. The webOS did not suck. I absolutely believe webOS is portable across printers, smarthones, media players, etc. And I'm proud of HP, which really can't make consumer software, for finally accepting that remaining loyal to Microsoft's tablet project was like Prince Charles waiting to assume the throne. By the time he gets there, he'll be far too old to enjoy it.

Computing is changing. Old worlds and old ways are dying. New leaders are being made, established companies are being re-energized. This is a market for billions of people. Billions. HP has talent, brand, distribution; now patents, an app store, a decent smartphone operating system. No, missing CES, having nothing for 9 months, having a new CEO; none of that bodes well.  No matter. For now, HP lives to fight.

Another day, another bigwig from Nokia with lots of As in his name leaves. This one, the head of MeeGo, which as I have told you before will be dead on arrival, leaves Nokia to join a small start-up with hopes of a big IPO payout.

Nah. I'm just messing with you. MeeGo is so dicked that Ari Jaaski is leaving to join...Palm.

After quitting/being let go about a month ago. But these MeeGo/Nokia guys are in high demand. Must be, cause Apple and Google and Facebook were all competing for him.

Nah. Still messing with you. He really is heading to Palm/HP.

And the double penetration being performed on the near-lifeless body of MeeGo continues. Sad, really. But the smartphone wars makes monsters of us all.

How good is/was Palm? webOS?

Steve Jobs made every tech blogger's week by speaking on the company's Q3 earnings call this week. The reason for this was to celebrate Apple's "first $20 billion quarter."

Palm was purchased outright by HP for a billion and chump change.

So, not so good.

Which is why I continue to be surprised by how many tech sites, bloggers, users, developers and others fret over what's gonna happen to Palm and their webOS now that it is controlled by HP. And all continue to gnash their teeth over all the Palm "talent" that continues to leave HP. Such as TechCrunch, which today fretted over the departure of two more 'critical' Palm visionaires, Ben Galbraith and Dion Almaer.

Talk about completely missing the point.

Nobody wants Palm. Nobody buys Palm. No one develops apps for Palm. And all these great thinkers and tinkerers and strategists are doing no one, certainly not HP, any good by actually continuing to work for Palm.

Palm lost the smartphone wars. If HP gave away a Palm Pre with every single inkjet printer it still wouldn't matter. But webOS, the Palm operating system can live. Only, not in smartphones. Well, to be fair, it can be put into smartphones, like the upcoming Palm Pre 2, they just won't really sell any of them. What HP needs to do instead, is break down webOS, understand all its functions and abiliites, determine how each chunk of code can be optimized, utilized and otherwise leveraged and built into HP printers, calculators, medical devices, embedded devices, anything.

webOS can live. Only, not as a smartphone OS. The sooner all the Palm staffers are gone, the sooner HP can make this happen.

A sweet tender kiss of an article from Forbes on ex-Palm designer, Peter Skillman. He's now heading up "user experience" for Nokia's MeeGo line.

What is Nokia's MeeGo line, you ask?

That's a new line of smartphones, not available, no one knows when they will be, if ever, based on Symbian. No, no really. Based on a sort of Linux OS that is absolutely not Symbian. Nor iOS. Nor Android. It's the future of Nokia. Except for when they don't talk about it, in which case Maemo, er, Symbian 3 (or 4) is the future.

Kind of.

And that's why Nokia is doomed.

No, not really. It's because Nokia hired a guy to head up "user experience" who was at Palm and who was instrumental in the design of the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi. Now, I'll be the first to admit that the Palm Pre and Pixi bombed for several reasons. And design was most definitely one of them. Despite Mr. Skillman's insistence that marketing and webOS and other (non-design) features doomed the device. And he's going to make the MeeGo relevant?

But, no, that really isn't why Nokia is doomed. It's because if the man who helped launch the Palm smartphones, who spent years at design firm IDEO, had the skills and the experience and the wherewithal and the savvy and the connections to actually make MeeGo a device people want, then when he left Palm (after it was acquired by HP), Nokia would have snatched him up.

Only they didn't. As Mr Skillman notes, Nokia spent "9 days" interviewing him. Because, I imagine, they are incapable of actually making a decision. And in the smartphone wars, that means doom.