GigaOM Pro

The hot rumor du jour is that Amazon is in advanced talks with H-P about acquiring the assets of Palm, including WebOS. Coming on the heels of Amzon’s unveiling of its Android-based Kindle Fire tablet, the report has touched off a fair amount of head-scratching. Having invested so much in developing its highly customized version of Android, complete with its own Amazon-branded app store, why buy another operating system now? Some see it as a shrewd move, however, that could lead to Kindle phones and PCs in addition to tablets. In any case, it’s likely to come cheap. As new H-P CEO Meg Whitman put it, “This decision [to sell Palm] is not like fine wine. It’s not going to get better with age.”