When Palm dumped OS5, sold off their OS and then eventually came up with webOS I really wondered if they knew what they were doing. Palm OS5 had potential, it had a loyal developer base and a lot of people who loved their Palm devices, and yet Palm's strategy was to abandon them. I still don't understand that strategy. So it isn't a big surprise that webOS has failed. It might have been a great mobile OS, given time, but it doesn't look like anyone was willing to give it any time at all.
I think it was only in March that HP committed to put webOS at the heart of their strategy, and yet in August it's dumped. I wouldn't say that's much of a commitment.
So what will they do with it? Open source it? Maybe, but I wouldn't count on it. But that's not the worst thing about the failure of webOS and the TouchPad. The worst thing is that it is one less possible hardware competitor for the iPad.
But there's still hope I guess. HP claim to still want to work the OS itself, as MacRumors states:
The hardware reportedly stopped the team from innovating beyond certain points because it was slow and imposed constraints, which was highlighted when webOS was loaded on to Apple’s iPad device and found to run the platform significantly faster than the device for which it was originally developed.
With a focus on web technologies, webOS could be deployed in the iPad’s Mobile Safari browser as a web-app; this produced similar results, with it running many times faster in the browser than it did on the TouchPad.
I don't know how that would make any money for HP, but it sounds like fun.
4 comments:
HP's legs are very weak.
Microsoft was able to support the XBOX1 even thought everyone told them it wouldn't work.
After less than 6 months, HP pulls their Touchpad and WebOS, showing the whole world that they have absolutely no long-term vision.
.. and still they have the balls to claim that "webOS is still alive"...
Thanks for nothing for killing Palm, HP.
Now good day.. I SAID GOOD DAY!
As an early Treo owner, I will agree that Palm owners loved their devices, but not the OS. That shit got replaced with a Windows Mobile phone the first time it crashed receiving a phone call.
There might be some potential for webOS as a browser-based OS, but is that really necessary? We've already got some fairly sophisticated code running in the browser space. I am saddened by what has become of both HP and 3COM before them. I'm beginning to think Palm is cursed.
I have a friend on the webOS development team. He said a lot of the information that's floating around about the TouchPad is incorrect.
In what way incorrect? I'd love to know what's really happening.
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