HP thought it had won the battle when it acquired Palm a few weeks back. What it did not know was that it stood to lose the war. Because the shiny chassis was void of one of its topmost brains.

Mike Bell, who was cherished loot for Palm after he spent 16 years sprucing up Apple, has been hired by Intel now. The last time we heard, Bell was the senior Vice President for Product Development on the Palm team. The HP acquisition left the top exec out of the new Palm circle. All this served pretty well for Intel, who promptly booked the experienced guy to be the new Vice President and Director of their Smartphone Product Development division, a part of Intel’s Ultra Mobility Group (UMG).

To Intel, and most others, Bell is a prized catch. What with his being a VP with Apple from 1991 to 2007, where he was a crucial part of iMac, Apple TV and iPhone developments. Or later on, after 2007, when as a senior VP of Product Development at Palm, he was in direct charge of the company’s product strategy, development and deployment areas. Plus his hand at the creation of the Palm PRE and the Palm PIXI.

UMG leader, Anand Chandrashekhar seems fairly enthused at this new inclusion. He says that, “Bell will help build and lead a team to build breakthrough smartphone reference designs to accelerate Intel Architecture into the market. Bell will focus on delivering leadership products that advance Intel chips into smartphones, help drive new business growth and further cultivate Intel’s global ecosystem relationships in this market segment.”

Intel has a knack of being right most of the time. This time around, history just seems to be repeating itself.