Amazon to Acquire Palm from HP?

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Amazon just launched its $199 Kindle Fire, much to the excitement of gadget lovers. But amid speculation that Amazon jumped onto the Android bandwagon too quickly, there are talks that Amazon is planning to buy Palm from HP for its webOS platform.

Retail giant Amazon launched its Kindle Fire tablet with the Amazon consumer in mind. The tablet is cheap, light-duty, and will make it easy for customers to Buy, Buy and Buy Now from Amazon. But running Android makes them an easy target for the likes of Apple, especially since the Kindle Fire runs Android. At this point, will it make sense to switch to another platform altogether?

Sources cited by VentureBeat say Amazon is in talks with HP for the possible acquisition of Palm. By extension, this also implies that Amazon is looking to acquire webOS for itself. Now recall that HP previously hinted that it was looking for technology partners to help them co-maintain webOS after they acquired Palm in 2010.

Reportedly, Amazon might get a good price for Palm if, indeed, HP is putting this division on the market. With HP’s move to spin off its PC business, along with splitting the webOS development team between hardware and software, HP is not likely to derive any much value from webOS anymore. Sources say Amazon can get a good bargain for Palm, way below the $1.2 billion acquisition price in 2010.

Further, Amazon has actually created its own interface on top of Android. It has even developed the web browser — a cloud computing-powered browser called Silk — which can take advantage of Amazon’s own EC2 platform to speed up content delivery. This means that Amazon could theoretically switch OSes and the user will never have to know. webOS is capable enough to handle Java applications, which Android apps practically are.

This move could also help Amazon mitigate any potential intellectual property issues, as well as improve the Kindle’s design and development. Recall that Microsoft is now charging Android device manufacturers licenses for using Microsoft-owned patents in the platform. Amazon has also outsourced the Kindle Fire’s design to Quanta, to the extent that the company is actually recycling design concepts from the BlackBerry PlayBook.

Amazon also has some connections with HP/Palm, since former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein — who now works in HP product innovation — sits on Amazon’s board. Will any of these sparks ignite and kindle the fire that would make Amazon go for Palm?

These are, of course, speculations for now. But if you’re curious as to the fate of webOS moving forward, this would be an interesting rumor to watch.