
A failed experiment: How LG screwed up its webOS acquisition - cpeterso
http://gigaom.com/2014/08/28/a-failed-experiment-how-lg-screwed-up-its-webos-acquisition/
======
aaronbrethorst
Money quote, no pun intended:

    
    
        LG had a policy in place to reward managers with
        bonuses or even promotions if their features were
        part of the final product. The result was a constant
        feature bloat, as everyone tried to add on one more
        thing.
    

Incentivizing the right behaviors is incredibly challenging.

~~~
dhh
Incentivizing any behavior is likely to end in ruin:
[http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm](http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm)

~~~
aaronbrethorst
I think avoiding behavioral incentivization is impossible. You have employees.
They (hopefully) want to excel in order to get things like promotions, raises,
bonuses, praise from the creator of Ruby on Rails, etc.

You're inevitably going to incentivize their behavior _somehow_. I think it
ends up simply being a matter of mitigating the worst possible outcomes, while
angling for something that seems reasonably decent.

* Incentivize number of bugs fixed, and you'll get shitty code up front

* Incentivize number of features shipped, and you'll get a hodgepodge of features jammed into a product

* Incentivize peer reviews, and maybe you'll end up with a culture of glad-handers and politicians (I don't actually know about this one...I've never been in a corporate culture that embraced this)

~~~
fulafel
There are alternatives to a system of individual promotions, raises and
bonuses. See Github, Valve, early Google etc.

------
aeturnum
I used to work in the "smart device" space at a small company called "Orb
Networks" (since acquired by Qualcomm). All the CE makers we talked to were
both terrified of being left behind by the pace of change and extremely
resistant to changing anything. Everyone we talked to would readily admit that
the current streaming media options (DLNA, service-specific "apps" or Airplay)
were limiting for them and for customers. DLNA suck, the apps were expensive
to develop and would often cover only a few TVs and Airplay was extremely
expensive BOM-wise and restricted you on hardware partners. They would also
agree that their interface was cumbersome and old-fashioned.

However, when push came to shove, no one was really interested in changing
anything. The systems that exist are there due to a complex interaction
between the various stakeholders in the product, least of which are the actual
customers. There are huge challenges in sourcing components that: run as
advertised, are priced competitively and will continue to be available into
the future. Software is generally an after-thought, even if it's what the
public sees.

The story of the WebOS team fighting tooth and nail to avoid the awful old
menu system rings very true. Good luck to the people to stayed.

~~~
pjc50
DLNA is everywhere but seems never to have taken off. Anyone want to elaborate
on _how_ or _why_ it's so terrible? Has it been tripped up by DRM or is it
just bad UI?

~~~
aeturnum
There are a whole host of issues. DLNA was defined back in 2003 and makes some
choices that don't make a lot of sense now. It was designed to be used by set
top boxes and computers in a mostly static environment - it doesn't really
take mobile use cases into account. For example, the concept of streaming
media does not exist in DLNA (it assumes that you'll always have the full file
at the start). It also imposes a lot of UI choices (all DLNA devices are
presented as a hierarchy of folders).

It's a standard that all DLNA providers implement and everyone does a little
bit differently. Between devices from the same company it can work alright,
but any time you need to connect up devices between manufacturers it's a crap
shoot.

It's not really a bad standard, it's just an old standard, designed for use
cases that already have pretty ok solutions (plug your computer into your TV,
copy the files to whatever device you want them on, etc). It doesn't address
the use cases most people have for their media now (i.e. can I play spotify on
my TV).

------
tsunamifury
Classic problems:

Acquire a company, then do everything you can to sabotage it or ignore their
expertise

Remind them they are just little guys now in the might corp empire.

Demand they launch a product whilst micromanaging them from a distant location
that is already filled with people proven to be incompetent in product design.

Despite all this the WebOS team managed to launch a great product. Why?
Probably because they love the product and want to share great work with the
world.

~~~
AndyNemmity
I agree, except for the part about people being incompetent in product design.
My take is that it can be generalized to be...

Acquire a company, then do everything you can to ignore them. Integrate them
technically, but not socially leaving them completely unaware of the rest of
the company.

Demand they launch a product while decisions are made from a distant location
filled with people that don't know anything about what they are doing, and
don't care because they have enough of their own work to do.

Next Stage -

Technically the company is integrated with many hiccups, the servers are on
the correct domain, and the network moves have happened. Still nothing feels
different except that they know they have some decision making that feels
almost random.

Next Stage - Product Release

Product is released, and doesn't match any of the assumed standards from big
corp. Everything is ripped a part for not meeting unknown and unknownable
objectives. It is easy to do because the other development teams HAD to follow
the objectives, and they didn't, so it can't even be CONSIDERED!

The remote company also can't defend themselves in discussions as most of them
happen without them physically there.

\- Next Stage

Team starts losing people rapidly. They aren't rehired locally, and are
instead backfilled at big corp. Since there are fewer people, they can't do
the full thing, and are then integrated with other development teams. The
ideas together help build a product that can launch and reach acceptance,
because the teams from remote know how to do it.

\- Next Stage

The remote teams start going to conferences meeting people, they've had enough
meetings with people remote they start to know who to go for. The big corp has
just acquired a new even bigger company, so now you start to feel like more a
real part of the company than even they are.

Your product was fine, and you start to move through the normal processes,
just with everything driven by people who have done it before remotely. Some
of the team members even move on to other parts of remote corp because they
did particularly well.

Next Step -

Total integration has happened, most of the teams are different people, but
there are a few guys that remember the good old days. You're now just another
random development unit, you might not even be working on what you initially
were acquired for. You're now a remote office, a fully integrated part of
remote corp. You're just a development group, and you're more expensive at
that. But hey, you still have jobs.

... That sound about right?...

------
m_mueller
Cultural differences might also be in play here. East Asians tend to have a
much higher tolerance for complex interfaces and lots of content to be seen on
the same screen. I'm still not sure whether complexity is actually _preferred_
over simplicity, but the fact is that people are very much used to it. It
might have to do with how their newspapers tend to look like [1]. It's the
look of something for the common people, the economical choice, while simple
things are being seen as something for the nobility - well thought through but
expensive, a luxury item. As an example, have a look at how suntory markets
their normal [2] whisky versus their luxury brand [3].

[1]
[http://en.kiosko.net/jp/np/asahi_shimbun.html](http://en.kiosko.net/jp/np/asahi_shimbun.html)

[2]
[http://www.suntory.co.jp/whisky/?fromid=top_pr](http://www.suntory.co.jp/whisky/?fromid=top_pr)

[3] [http://theyamazaki.jp/](http://theyamazaki.jp/)

~~~
wisty
I think it's more Chinese and Japanese sites, because their words take up far
less characters.

------
codezero
I developed an app for webOS and was pretty involved in the development
community. It really was a pleasure to work with.

The main problem developers had, even up to the HP acquisition was the lack of
direct hardware APIs (access to the camera, etc...) and a late arrival for
native development.

This seemed to really cripple webOS and I imagine that there was something
about the architecture that made it hard to work with and move to new
platforms, but I don't know.

It's pretty sad that almost everything about webOS starts with: "webOS was
supposed to..." :(

------
igl
I miss my palm pre... Best phone user interface i ever used and it was
actually less sluggish than my galaxy running jawah with twice the computing
power. But I admit the small screen, bad battery life and lack of apps was
kinda shitty too...

After they replaced google- with bing-maps i had to put it down for good :(

~~~
enraged_camel
>>I miss my palm pre...

I don't. Mine had a nifty "feature" whereby one times out of five, sliding it
shut would actually turn off the phone itself. As in, it would lose power
completely and die.

I went through probably a hundred power-on sequences on that thing during the
two weeks I owned it. I finally returned it to the store and bought an iPhone.
Haven't looked back since.

~~~
girvo
My iPhone 4 when I received it would constantly shut down at 50% battery. That
started two months after I bought it. Granted, I got it repaired, etc. but
damn near every consumer electronic product runs into issues for someone. I
never owned a Pre, but I always wanted to. Always had a soft-spot for Palm,
mainly because of my lovely Sony Clie PDA back in the day.

------
wehadfun
Smart TVs are useless. I want a good screen, and a bunch of HDMI and USB
ports. The only "smart" feature I want is a way to name what device the HDMI
port is connected to. Let my cable box/chromecast/Blu Ray player/Playstation
be smart

~~~
bjt
What is the optimal number of remote controls in your living room?

~~~
x0x0
one, and most likely it's made by apple or roku, because they appear to be
nearly the only companies that can make a remote with fewer than 20 buttons.

~~~
jbish
I like my LG remote for its simplicity actually. Simply designed, functions
sort of like the Wii Remote, and controls my cable box as well. This is the
one I have:

[http://static.trustedreviews.com/94/00002a829/6614/LG77EC980...](http://static.trustedreviews.com/94/00002a829/6614/LG77EC9800MagicRemote.jpg)

------
ENGNR
The best UI is no UI, so glad to have Chromecast to just skip the smart TV UI
altogether.

------
kristofferR
It's really weird to call LG's webOS "a failed experiment" considering that
everybody loves it (it's universally though of as the best SmartTV interface
out there) and that their webOS TVs are selling like hotcakes.

Sure, the road there may not have been pretty at all, but it's the end result
that matters.

~~~
nerderloo
1/3 webOS team has already quit. webOS as it currently is only the result of
the CES deadline forcing LG to go with webOS rather than LG team. Even after
success of webOS TV, LG is still going with LG team. webOS team's morale is
low. They got lucky with launch. With the way things are, it's only going to
get worse.

~~~
Nelson69
Anyone know more of the story? This sounds fairly one sided.

I know nothing about this and I'm just guessing, but I'd imagine that after
Palm sold to HP and then at various times under HP's reign, a lot of people
left. Perhaps a few stuck around that were handcuffed, in fact I'm sure some
did but I'd guess a lot of high quality probably left.

Then when LG stepped up, it seems like it must have made for a somewhat
difficult situation, HP's handcuffs would normally be paid out, right? So it's
up to LG to renew as part of the sale, right? So I'd have expected another
exodus but I'd also expect maybe some nice reasons for key people to stick
around, no idea what these numbers would look like but I'd expect bigger than
HP offered. Then as things under LG went on maybe those incentives didn't seem
as appealing or something. Perhaps HP paid too much and the new incentives
weren't as appealing.

Ironically, I'd think as for putting the product in front of people, the LG
situation would be as good as the WebOS team has ever had, LG sells a lot of
well made hardware products, they're serious. What I'd really think happened
is WebOS's core team was depleted under HP, they sold it to LG, never reloaded
and now there are gigantic demands on them that they simply cannot satisfy.
That's rough, LG should double down and help them get some new talent that's
hungry.

The idea that WebOS was going to "change LG" seems interesting...

------
AdmiralAsshat
WebOS just can't catch a break, can it?

~~~
dkarapetyan
It was far too ahead of its time. It still is.

~~~
codezero
In many ways this is true, and in many ways it wasn't, I think.

webOS as a concept, way ahead, as an implementation, it had lots of prickly
bits. Mojo (the UI SDK) was great to work with but only went so far. Palm and
then HP tried to move forward with Enyo but came way too late, and they never
delivered on promises of hardware access APIs.

Once it started changing hands, it was a lost cause, you just lose a lot of
knowledge and passion when entire code bases get handed around to new teams.
For a mobile platform to really do something good, it needs to be a few years
ahead of the hardware it lands on. webOS was until HP acquired it, they had
video recording before the iPhone (just barely) and the gesture area was
perfect. The stuff Palm was working on right when HP grabbed them was also
really amazing (synergy between devices among other things). But that overhead
of transferring ownership made all these projects basically obsolete and in
turn the OS :(

------
therealmarv
I also do not feel surprised. LG is known for good hardware. Actually I'm
typing this right now on a Nexus 5 from LG and I'm so thankful that the
software is controlled by Google. The worst decision is to copy Samsung...
really stop that LG. Samsung is not a ideal example how to do it right!
Simplicity of usage without too much compromise on features is what the World
wants. Samsungs software is also ugly IMHO. I'm guessing LG is not seeing the
world market... in Asia people are obsessed by Samsung devices like USA is
obsessed with iPhones. LG has much potential but I would never buy a LG
product (which is controlled by LG) because of their bad software and bad
software support. It seems they even do not support their engineers well. :(

~~~
darklajid
Wait, wait, wait. Samsung?

I do own a Samsung 'Smart' TV. I connected it once to the network and won't
ever do that again. That leads to

\- a forced software update

\- gazillion 'apps' being forcefully installed

All of these

\- aren't on the machine when you buy it

\- cannot be removed without a firmware reset after a disconnect [1]

\- are SO. CRAPPY. Really. Like the scum of the web. The worst of the worst.
Think yellow press newspaper app, but lower

\- are prominently displayed on your TV, even if you choose to install 'other
things' (YouTube? Yeah, less important than, say, BILD. A despicable and ugly
illusion of a newspaper in Germany). You cannot even _hide_ the crap.

So .. anyone copying Samsung for TVs is a moron in my world. There's no worse
way that first 'smart TV' experience could've gone that I could imagine. You
cannot, even if you try, make that experience worse.

(Don't buy Samsung Smart TVs, unless you don't plan to use the so-called Smart
feature. They suck [2])

1: As confirmed by their customer service. That's "by design" and there's
nothing you can do about it. I learned that from the hotline and unfortunately
too late to return the TV (I .. didn't connect it for the first 3 weeks due to
cable issues/a lack of a wifi adapter)

2: Disclaimer: Lots of the "I force shit down your throat" behavior seems
localized. So .. that I can actually enjoy the crappiest content that the
German language can offer in this particular case. Maybe it's a little better
elsewhere, but the attitude still supports that Samsung, as a TV manufacturer,
sucks balls. That is all.

~~~
malkia
I'm on one of these Samsung LED 3D blah blah Smart Apps TV.

Often our kid would ask me: "Daddy when is this (update) going to finish? I'm
gonna miss..."

Oh, and I'm still waiting for Netflix / captions on it. For now the workaround
for us, either the PS3 (noise & heat) or the ChromeCast (much easier to
control from the phone).

....

~~~
darklajid
My solution was a Pi with OpenElec. That's all I use right now, connected via
HDMI. The TV is unaware that a network exists.

I bought 'Yatse' on Android and I can only recommend it (if you're into xbmc).
I can not only remotely control the xbmc stuff, I can stream a lot of content
(video, pictures, music) to the xbmc/TV as well.

------
throwaway928374
Samsung engineer here. This sounds awfully familiar.

As mentioned by mirkules, the waterfall model coming from our hardware
divisions is transposed to pretty much everything. And if it were like the
old-school 3 year development cycle waterfall model, it could be fine, but
it's obviously not. Software and services are just seen as value add to our
product line, that is renewed every year (or even every six months).

This why a project like Tizen has been such a disaster so far. You can acquire
and hire all the talent you want, in the end decisions are made by VPs who
only care about not being fired next year. Building a platform is impossible
in such conditions. Add some conflict of interest into the mix and you have a
Tizen phone being constantly delayed for no technical reason.

------
AndyNemmity
Hard to comment, but I'll say that this is fairly common in the world of
Global companies. Good decisions vs. Bad ones, or decisions at all can often
happen by chance more so than choice. Location, there are many variables that
come into it. If you end up having a ton of talent, it all works out no matter
what, but if you would have told me that before I had experience in it, I'm
not sure I could have believed it.

10 years ago in startups, it seemed a lot like bootstrapping. Paying newish
guys to fill in the ranks to not spend money. Now, more and more enterprise
PHD guys are being hired by startups draining the talent pool. Will be
interesting to see 10 years from now if that continues to play out, or if it
corrects itself in some way.

I'd assume that has to do with the influx of capitol in startups. I used to
think startups couldn't pay for Enterprise guys, but in the 2 years that's
changed. Would be interesting to hear more thoughts from VC perspective if
they see this as well.

------
transfire
webOS is the #1 reason I am considering LG for future TV purchases. If they
screw that up then forget it. They will never be more than a second-bit
player. And here I was hoping they would eventually get webOS back on phones.
How sadly myopic can corporations be?

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
>>And here I was hoping they would eventually get webOS back on phones.

[http://www.engadget.com/2014/09/02/webos-port-renamed-
luneos...](http://www.engadget.com/2014/09/02/webos-port-renamed-luneos/)

------
mjmahone17
This article actually makes it sound like webOS is the best thing to happen to
LG, at least on the software side, in a long time. And not because of the
software, but because the team understands how to build software, and so if
they start having success despite LG's culture, some of those models might rub
off on the larger LG software organization. Then again, knowing how silo'd and
difficult it is to change large companies, it may be that LG destroys webOS
instead (in terms of causing such a huge culture shift that the team entirely
disbands, or at least those responsible for the culture do).

------
miles_matthias
This is a great article and even better timing for me: I just bought one of
these tvs last weekend. A power surge fried our living room tv so we went to
best buy, looked around, and ended up going with LG.

Had the best picture, best reputation, and their simple and intuitive webOS
was the selling point. If the Korean managers would have had their way, I
wouldn't have bought an LG.

Side discussion: is this an eastern vs western culture difference? Every
Samsung device I try to use seems bloated to me too. Maybe it's just
coincidence.

~~~
megablast
Right, so the best picture, best reputation but same crappy interface as every
other tv is not enough of a selling point?

~~~
miles_matthias
The webOS part actually stopped working a few days after I bought it and now I
have a Samsung.

------
wfjackson
I am not surprised. I have, never once in my life, felt that a piece of
software from a hardware OEM was well written. They tend to be universally
highly buggy, heavily bloated, have highly confusing UI, prone to crashes and
full of security holes. This includes software from Sony, Asus, HP, Samsung,
RealTek, Nvidia, AMD, Logitech etc. I guess software development just not part
of their culture and is an afterthought. The worst is that they bundle this
software as a value add that the other OEMs don't have, thus wasting money on
something that people almost never use instead of just discounting the price
with that money.

My favorite UI gripe is having to get the idea to click on the folder icon on
this screen to disable the front panel audio detection for a RealTek sound
chip.

[http://cdn.windows7themes.net/pics/enable_front_audio_jack_w...](http://cdn.windows7themes.net/pics/enable_front_audio_jack_windows7_2.jpg)

~~~
bellerocky
Does this include Apple?

~~~
wfjackson
It doesn't include Apple or Microsoft(which is a Surface OEM I guess).

~~~
acchow
or HTC.

