It may have been overshadowed by pricier acquisition deals in subsequent years, but HP’s 2010 takeover of Palm remains a milestone event. It was a seemingly perfect combination of a highly competitive mobile operating system with a deep-pocketed hardware juggernaut. HP promised it would fund the future development of webOS and support it with a broad ecosystem of devices. Only a year later, however, the company reversed course and abandoned its touted plans, to the chagrin of hard-hit shareholders.
