In 2010 Phil McKinney led the technical due diligence on Palm and convinced HP's board to acquire the mobile company. Here he tells for the first time the story of how HP fumbled the acquisition and doomed WebOS.
https://philmckinney.substack.com/p/i-convinced-hps-board-to-buy-palm
@amoroso this was fascinating. I was down the road at Cisco and watched their m&a beast, a core competency, successfully ingest many companies. But this is the exception not the rule.
Reading this, I’m struggling to remember a successful acquisition by HP in this era. They were looking for a fast pivot into mobile against giants, they’d have to beat the odds and acquire successfully AND then pirouette to fight peak form apple and (known by the board) do a ceo change? Good fucking luck. Any of those is a Harvard business review case study, all 3 in 90 days? Not a shot.
The board should have said no.
@sgharms The impression is a lot of FOMO was involved. And at the time Palm wasn't exactly regarded as the future of computing, mobile or otherwise.
@amoroso as I recall, I went from having a palm treo to the blackberry to iPhone
It was another impossible fiction/Hail Mary play that a no-tier performer to buy a third tier performer and come out to take on the recently dethroned research in motion or the newly ascendant Apple.
Just on the basic principle of narrate how this story is successful to me like I’m 12 this has no viability.
There’s no way the story makes sense and the board, many of them are collecting millions in this period sure as hell should know.
