We ran a story last week saying that mobile phone manufacturer Palm was up for sale, and we pondered that heavyweights such as HTC or Lenovo might swoop in and grab the company in a fire-sale.

However, HP has come straight in from the left-field and snapped the struggling webOS and Pre producer up for $1bn (with around $200m in debt as well).

The mobile handset company announced its cloud-connection webOS operating system last year at CES but failed to capitalise on their software advantage by releasing handsets rocking the device in time, or releasing a game development SDK effectively to jump on the apps bandwagon.

Struggling sales in the face of stiff competition from their iPhone and Android rivals really kicked them in the ribs, and the promising new platform never took off in the way that they hoped. The sale to HP makes it seem more likely that some of the more inventive aspects will remain, as the company doesn't have a competing mobile division in which ideas will be lost.

So, HP buys Palm. We really don't think that was on many people's radars this time last week.

[BBC]