

The Next Chapter For webOS - hornokplease
http://developer.palm.com/blog/2011/08/the-next-chapter-for-webos/

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mortenjorck
This reads like some sort of strained apology for a relative's behavior at a
family event.

I can't really think of any way that HP could have more thoroughly botched
this transition—the last thing you _ever_ want for a platform is uncertainty;
you want to assure end-users and developers alike that your platform is worth
investing in.

If HP's board felt it was time to get out of the mobile hardware game, fine;
the way to do that would have been to arrange a hardware partnership and
devise a plan of continuity for developers and users. Announcing out of the
blue that they're ceasing hardware manufacturing and literally _have no idea
what they're doing next_ represents a mind-blowing caliber of professional
incompetence that should have investors calling for Apotheker's ouster.

HP just left a car full of dogs to sit in the hot sun. With the engine
running.

~~~
sjs
... and the doors open. If the dogs don't leave can you really blame whoever
left them? Nothing can get rid of the remaining webOS dev dogs at this point.

Too bad. I had a lot of hope for webOS but that has been reduced to barely a
shred. Such potential squandered by a big broken machine that paid handsomely
for it, sang its praises, made huge plans, and then killed it on purpose.

~~~
angstrom
Basically they got it cheap, put a half ass hardware effort behind it, and now
are cutting their losses. I wonder if that's how it went over in the board
meeting?

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Bud
First: I really would like webOS to succeed and find a device it can run on.

That said, how is it at all credible that webOS' main backer has
simultaneously ceased production of ALL its hardware which was intended to run
webOS, but also expects us to believe a line like "We will continue to
support, innovate and develop the webOS App Catalog"?

Who's going to buy apps from that App Catalog? How are you planning to keep
this OS current as a competitor to iOS if you have NO users in the field using
it, buying and downloading apps, helping to test and fine-tune it, etc?

I just can't see this realistically happening. Apparently, very few others can
see it, either, which is why HP stock tanked by 20% today.

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Tichy
Thanks for working for us for free. We'd really appreciate if you'd continue
to donate your time to strengthen our market position, even though we just
slapped you in the face.

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thoughtsimple
Any developer who spends time on webOS now is deluded. It is possible that
webOS will continue but are you going to bet your livelihood on that? If the
largest PC hardware builder in the world can't build a successful webOS
device, who can?

I'm not seeing a lot of possibilities for licensing or outright sale of webOS.
Android is free and open source (for the most part.) If you are a hardware
manufacturer who wants to own your own OS, fork Android and go from there. If
you just want to license an OS, go with Android and forgo paying HP for a
license.

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gfodor
So wait, they're going to support a platform for which no new devices are
being manufactured to run on? It sounds like they're planning to license it, I
guess, if they can. (They probably won't be able to.)

~~~
raganwald
_So wait, they're going to support a platform for which no new devices are
being manufactured to run on? It sounds like they're planning to license it, I
guess, if they can._

You know, back in the day everybody and his dog was telling Apple to license
MacOS (I mean OS 7-9, not OS X). Apple supporters would tirelessly explain
that turning MacOS into a commodity OS would make it neither fish nor fowl: It
wouldn’t have the reach of Windows nor would it have the seamless integration
of an Apple-only product. There was a brief and half-hearted attempt to
license it which only cannibalized Apple’s existing sales. Steve killed it the
moment he returned as CEO.

Now HP has declared that despite being a dominant manufacturer of PCs, it
cannot win in the personal computing business and it has no marketing muscle
nor manufacturing chops to succeed and make money in the phone or tablet
businesses.

Only everyone talks about how great their OS is. This sounds exactly like
Apple when they were all but acquired by NeXT in a reverse takeover. Only
instead of doubling down on their manufacturing and marketing like Apple did,
they’re exiting the business and licensing their OS. I am not going to predict
that they will fail, but I am going to say it will be interesting to see what
happens with licensing and to compare it (if only for entertainment purposes)
with what happened with Apple.

~~~
ansy
I believe the comparison HP would prefer you use is to IBM. Unlike Apple, HP
has a whole lot more than consumer PCs. Between its servers and EDS, it's
arguably much more like IBM.

IBM was synonymous with the PC especially in business and government and
especially with Thinkpad laptops. Hell, other PCs were always called "IBM
Compatible" because an the modern PC was really just a compatible copy of
IBM's version of the personal computer. But IBM wasn't executing well and
failing to keep up with the Dells of the world on the consumer side of things.

So IBM spun off its consumer products like its PC division (to Lenovo), its
peripherals like keyboards and mice (to Unicomp), and its printers (as
Lexmark). Then it doubled down on big iron, midrange servers, and made a huge
play on software and consulting services.

In the end, IBM survives, is profitable, and nobody thinks it's going away any
time soon. What remains of HP has long been growing into a copy of the modern
IBM with a huge, low margin PC business hanging off it that grows only by
cannibalizing the market share of other low margin PC manufacturers exiting
the market entirely. To think that the remaining half of the company wouldn't
survive after spinning off the PC business is just silly.

~~~
raganwald
I know for a fact that HP would prefer us to think of IBM, and I will not fall
into the trap of thinking it is like IBM or Apple but not both. The way in
which HP is like Apple is that its mobile business has a proprietary OS with
good reviews but poor market. This does not apply to their desktop business,
which resembles IBMs in that they wound up being a tax collector for
Microsoft.

~~~
ansy
I see the similarity, although webOS is nowhere near the heart and soul of HP
that Mac OS is to Apple.

Should HP's management be fighting a two front war against IBM and Apple?
Maybe not. Apple dumped Xserve, has nearly dumped the Mac Pro, and pretty much
ignores enterprise users entirely despite being on a stratospheric trajectory.
WebOS probably means as much to HP's bottom line as Xserve did to Apple's and
HP is treading water.

Consolidating on a consistent corporate vision is the first step to being like
Apple. HP's vision is all muddled between being a consumer company and being a
business company. Hopefully HP can figure out who it wants to be so it can
start doing it well.

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officemonkey
Combine this with the suggestion that WebOS worked better on the iPad than the
TouchPad, and I'm left with the impression that HP is going to open up (or
possibly just license) WebOS for other tablets.

Or maybe I'm just so enamored of the idea of WebOS that I can't imagine it
dying the same death of BeOS and PalmOS.

------
sebkomianos
tl;dr: "I have no idea what we are going to do - if we are going to do
anything anyway!"

Or is it just me that got this message reading this "announcement"?

~~~
noonespecial
And whatever it is that we do or don't do if we do or don't do it "will
strengthen our ability to focus on further innovating with webOS". Please
still come to our developers conferences!?

I commend the PR guy who banged this one out... I'm guessing he risked
creating a paradox that rent the space-time continuum to get this down.

------
Adkron
Why are they continuing the app catalog? I really want to write apps for a
shrinking market of people who still own a pre (I'm one of those people). I
really hope this canned response is followed by some amazing announcement.
Right now it just sucks.

------
glhaynes
"We have opened the next chapter for webOS..."

Well, that's a way to put it I suppose.

~~~
eropple
"Relegated to the dustbin" is still history, just not really filled with
detail.

