Palm's (NASDAQ:PALM) shareholders approved Hewlett-Packard's $1.2 billion acquisition of the company, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, clearing the way for the deal to close in the coming days.
According to an 8-K filing, the deal is now expected to close sometime in the first week of July. HP had previously said the deal would close by July 1. Once the ink is dry on the deal, HP will begin the process of assimilating Palm in earnest.
Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein is expected to stay on as the head of a mobile devices division within HP. HP has been largely mum about Palm's future since the deal was announced in April, but the company recently dropped a hint that more webOS devices are in the works.
"I'm not allowed to talk about future roadmaps, especially because we're in the process of being acquired by HP, so I can't say," Josh Marinacci, a member of Palm's developer relations team, said last week on a webinar hosted by AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T). "But yes, we have a road map. We are working on future devices. And [a] new version of the OS. So I think, you're going to find the next year very exciting."
While not entirely surprising, the comments are notable in the wake of recent remarks by HP CEO Mark Hurd. Speaking at an investor conference, Hurd said HP did not spend $1.2 billion to buy Palm so it could be in the smartphone business, and instead focused on webOS as a piece of intellectual property. HP quickly sought to clarify Hurd's comments, and noted the company acquired Palm and webOS for "an array of interconnected devices, including tablets, printers and, of course, smartphones."
In other Palm news, Lynn Fox, Palm's vice president of corporate communications, announced she would leave the company, according to Engadget. She is the latest in a string of Palm executives to leave following the announcement of the HP deal.
For more:
- see this Engadget post
- see this AllThingsD post
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