HP this afternoon announced its purchase of Palm, the battered smartphone company finally finding itself in the hands of a stronger owner. We were never optimistic about Palm's viability in the smartphone business even as it rolled out WebOS in 2009. Today's results validated that the cutting-throat competition in the smartphone market just produced another victim.

It will be interesting to see if HP will continue to support Pre and Pixi, or HP will just make Palm technology as a core component in its portfolio. During the conference call this afternoon, HP executives confirmed that Palm's technology will be applied to platforms other than mobile handsets, but declined to give timeline/roadmap or specific structure of the Palm division within HP.

My immediate reaction to the deal is whether HP will reduce its reliance on Microsoft Windows Mobile and focus more on internal platform development. Of course, HP people declined to comment on that. Let's wait and find out.

After-hour trading has been brisk for Palm shares. Last time I checked, it was traded at $5.90, 20 cents higher than the offer price from HP--does the market believe another bidder will soon emerge?