After all the speculation, HP has agreed to buy Palm for $1.2 billion, or roughly 5.70 dollars a share. (Here's the release.)

Palm, which was running short of cash and struggling to compete against the Apple's and Google's of the world, will now have HP's deep pockets and worldwide scope. While HP is no stranger to the mobile phone world-with its line of iPAQ phones-it has a lot of catching up to do and could benefit from branching out to phones and tablets from its a laptop and PC driven line-up.

Generally, Palm's technology is viewed as solid, it was just poor timing that hurt the smartphone-makers' chances. Of all the rumored potential acquirers from Dell to HTC and Huawei, HP was never considered a likely candidate. Palm's current chairman and CEO, Jon Rubinstein, who received a bit of flak for Palm's recent poor performance, is expected to remain at the company.

In a brief statement on Palm's web site, they point out that HP is one of the largest technology companies in the word, adding: "Can you say "webOS acceleration"? We're pretty excited, and pleased we surprised the world again."

source: finance.yahoo.com