TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

HP has bought Palm for $1.2 billion.

Really interesting move, and it could potentially be a great one. HP wants WebOS, and wants to use it across multiple devices.

Apparently Palm will operate as a business unit within HP, and at least a good portion of their management will remain. HP, then, isn’t just interested in Palm’s assets–WebOS, engineers and patents–but in the whole thing. It sounds like HP wants Palm to, more or less, become their mobile devices division.

There’s no doubt that HP wants to compete with Apple and Google in the mobile devices market. They certainly have the opportunity to do so–WebOS is fantastic (and the only mobile OS I’d consider if I didn’t have an iPhone), but they need to do it right. They need a focused product strategy–one or two phones that they can focus all of their resources on–so they don’t dilute themselves.

Having a large number of different devices in the same category might give the consumer a “choice,” but it also confuses them on what HP is offering. HP needs a thesis: this is what we stand for, and we think it’s really great. Some might not like what they stand for, but at least they stand for something, and at least people would know what it is.

Multiple products in the same category also dilutes the power of their R&D and development teams, because they’re spread thin. Choose the best thing you have to offer, and develop the hell out of it.

Hopefully they choose that route instead of shooting themselves in the foot by creating all kinds of different devices.