Opinions - HP gives up on mobile – what next for webOS?

[HEXUS]

Being the fifth mobile platform wasn’t sustainable for HP, but it might be for others.

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[Jedibeeftrix]

Lol dammit! There goes my only serious alternative to the Nokia N9.

Both WP7 and android now have heavyweight hardware vendors backing them, this makes it a dangerous business for Samsung et-al to rely on them as a third parties.

With HP ditching their low-margin consumer hardware business, WebOS for printers doesn't make much sense, so perhaps Samsung would like to buy WebOS?

[crossy]

With HP ditching their low-margin consumer hardware business, WebOS for printers doesn't make much sense, so perhaps Samsung would like to buy WebOS?

Sorry, I disagree here - webOS supposedly has very good multitasking in a small footprint - which (I would argue) makes it a good idea for middle to top-end MFP's. My current HP MFP is Android-based, and so a webOS one would be at least as good. More so for HP, since (at the moment) they own the OS.

As to webOS's longer-term future - I figure either it's going to die off as one of those ideas who didn't quite make it (e.g. Apple Newton), or HP'll be looking for a consortium effort - an arrangement like the Open Handset Alliance perhaps. I've got to wonder if this OS isn't a good possibility for all those folks currently shipping very low cost Android-based gear - especially if Microsoft, Apple, etc are hell-bent on suing the pants off anyone using Android.

Again, ScottB is arguably calling it right - it'll probably end up positioned in the same "embedded" space as MeeGo.

[Jedibeeftrix]

i'm not sure i'm saying what you think i'm saying, as the first paragraph doesn't appear to bear any relationship to anything that i wrote.........?

the second paragraph is a perfectly possible outcome however.

[crossy]

i'm not sure i'm saying what you think i'm saying, as the first paragraph doesn't appear to bear any relationship to anything that i wrote.........?

Oops - that's what comes of posting while on a (particularly boring) teleconf. What I thought you were saying was that webOS was unsuitable as an embedded OS - specifically for printers (seeing as this is one of the bits that HP's holding onto atm).

Rereading your post, I now see that you could've also being saying that HP couldn't justify holding onto webOS merely to use in it's printers. From what you said in the quoted post above I'm guessing that was the intended message ... my bad

Just as long as there's some "fire sale" prices on Pre3 and TouchPad for employees...

[Jedibeeftrix]

haha, no problem.

[Jedibeeftrix]

16GB touchpads are being discounted to $99 in the states and canada, keep an eye out for such deals here in the UK please.

i'd go for a £150 touchpad in a shot!

[crossy]

16GB touchpads are being discounted to $99 in the states and canada, keep an eye out for such deals here in the UK please. i'd go for a £150 touchpad in a shot!

Good to hear - although I'd obviously prefer to see a 1:1 exchange rate. At £99 I'd buy two...

And, according to precentral, these will also dual-boot Ubuntu.

[Jedibeeftrix]

Good to hear - although I'd obviously prefer to see a 1:1 exchange rate. At £99 I'd buy two...

And, according to precentral, these will also dual-boot Ubuntu.

so, when will the UK get with the program and start slashing touchpad prices............?

[leonkehoe]

The webOS faithful have abandoned it. That's its biggest problem if a relaunch is to happen, they're starting from scratch because those of us who stuck around in the hope things would get better cannot hold on any longer. We're off, to pastures new, in my case WP7.

To be honest, the last two years have been a bloody waste of time, whilst other OSs have evolved webOS has largely stood still whilst Palm battled to stay afloat and were eventually bought by HP.