HP's CEO Mark Hurd have been good for a few choice quotes ever since the company acquired Palm ("We didn't buy Palm to get into the smartphone business"), and today we've got another.  This one, however, isn't as bad for Palm as the ones in the past have been.  Speaking with German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine, Hurd stated that the Palm brand won't end up getting killed, but would instead be "moved into the background," similar to the Pavilion or Envy lines of computers that HP manufactures.  Hurd then reiterated that "Palm is a software deal," but also mentioned phones, slates, and printers as possible destinations for webOS.

Considering the strength of the Palm name, both recently with webOS and with past products, it's not a surprise that HP won't be doing away completely with the Palm brand.  It is kind of disappointing that Palm will become a "sub-brand" of HP, though, since Palm has done much better in the mobile space than HP ever has (remember the iPaq?).  As long as Palm continues to release new hardware and updated versions of webOS, though, I'll be happy.

Via PreCentral, FAZ.net