HP On Palm Acquisition: “Our Intent Is To Double Down On WebOS”

http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/28/hp-palm-deal-webos/

by nlwhittemore • 16 years ago

47 23 16 years ago

jarin• 16 years ago

WebOS is actually pretty nice to develop for, it just needs faster hardware with better battery life. Oh, and a way for developers to make money. It's a little rough that anyone can just shell into their phone and view all of your source code.

glhaynes• 16 years ago

Is Palm's hardware roughly comparable with average Android and Apple phones? (thus making it the software that's slow and power-hungry, not the hardware?) I've just heard so many people complain that the "everything is web" aspect of it makes it slow, but I don't know whether that's just a scapegoat or if it's really true.

sueders100• 16 years ago

The Pre isn't as fast as the top of the line Android phones, but it's no slouch either. It holds its own in most side by side comparisons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7FJj5-7vQI

ZeroGravitas• 16 years ago

I believe the Palm Pre, the Motorola Droid, the Nokia N900 (and in non-phone contexts the Open Pandora handheld and Beagleboard) all use the same TI OMAP3 board.

tjpick2• 16 years ago

> a way for developers to make money

I'm not terribly familiar with webOS/palm ecosystem, hence the question: what's the usual channel for selling a webOS app? all this cloud talk etc, does that mean you can chuck up a web site/app targeted at webOS and start charging for it?

Zev• 16 years ago

If you wanted to, sure. Palm also has an App Store. IIRC, they just entered into a bunch of EU markets.

hackernews• 16 years ago

re: battery life

Since, 1.4.1, I think things have changed. I get 3 days out of a full charge now which is close to making me forget my blackberry.

gfodor• 16 years ago

Good for them! WebOS, as I understand it, is the nicest OS of the bunch from an elegance and openness perspective, so it's good to see it getting a fair shot at market dominance.

Exciting stuff -- let's just hope the additional fragmentation is worth it.

postfuturist• 16 years ago

The fragmentation is good. The phone market is much healthier than the PC market. A handful of profitable platforms means heavy competition and innovation: a big win for consumers (and developers). I hope HP does well in the phone market, as I wish the peddlers of Android phones and Apple success as well. Plenty of money to spread around in that market.

zmmmmm• 16 years ago

Too much fragmentation sucks. It means none of them will gain critical mass and at least half of them will spend several painful years slowly failing. I don't see how any of these guys (Symbian, WebOS, etc.) hope to overcome Android & WinPhone, at least in the smart phone market. All they can do is harm them by distracting and confusing the market for a few years, equating to consolidation for Apple. I know I am certainly not going to write apps for 5 platforms. I will pick 2 and go with that.

alanh• 16 years ago

WebOS apps are mostly written using web technologies (HTML/CSS/JS) so I don't see this as a negative fragmentation. Of course, competing with the App Store is still going to be difficult, but the theoretical barrier of writing an app for webOS (learn web technology) is lower than that for iPhone (learn Obj-C/Cocoa).

run4yourlives2• 16 years ago

Is using a gambling term to describe a business acquisition supposed to calm shareholder fears/concerns of risk?

Clearly that one didn't go through the normal PR approval process.

stretchwithme• 16 years ago

maybe they think embracing the obvious is the way to go

run4yourlives2• 16 years ago

You double down when you expect the odds favour a dealer bust.

I'm not sure how anyone suggesting that Apple, Google and RIM busting shouldn't be feared, if that's what they actually mean.

dagw• 16 years ago

This shareholder is far more spooked by vague platitudes that have obviously been through the PR filter a dozen times and are devoid of meaning. Once that is all you hear, then you should start to worry.

jpcx01• 16 years ago

I love my Pre. Great new innovative ui, and excellent browsing experience.

slantyyz• 16 years ago

Maybe we'll finally see a legitimate competitor for the iPad now. All of a sudden, the market just got a little interesting.

37prime• 16 years ago

The first thing came to my mind reading the headline was:

"What does KFC have anything to do with HP or Palm?"

HP On Palm Acquisition: “Our Intent Is To Double Down On WebOS”

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