

WebOS will be on 'every HP PC' shipping next year, says CEO - BvS
http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/09/webos-will-on-every-hp-pc-shipping-next-year-says-ceo/

======
raganwald
Ok, I know I need another coffee, so I apologise in advance for being the
Grinch here, but...

This is pure CEO puffery. When will these guys get it? When will they start
looking up to Steve Jobs instead of treating him like a guy who just happened
to get lucky eight times (Apple II, Macintosh, Pixar, Macintosh again, iPod,
iTMS, iPhone, App Store, iPad)?

Steve does not talk about what will ship on every Macintosh next year. He
might talk about what will ship in the next sixty days if there is an SDK he
is shipping to developers today. Steve does not talk about Apple investing in
R&D. Steve invests in R&D.

Talking about the future is the action of a person interested in how he looks
and sounds, rather than the actions of a person interested in how the company
performs.

Steve ships. Leo had better spend less time with his PR people and more time
with his engineers. I have nothing against shipping WebOS on every HP PC next
year. But please, Leo, just fucking do it. Talk to your engineers, not to me.

~~~
contextfree
This is kind of cultish. Jobs being successful with a certain approach doesn't
mean that it's the only possible successful approach and everyone else should
copy it.

Not that you can't make an argument for his approach to disclosure, but it'd
be better if not couched in hero-worship.

~~~
raganwald
_it'd be better if not couched in hero-worship_

I admire what the man has accomplished. That doesn't make me blind to those of
his policies that I dislike. For example, I do not develop for iOS at this
time, despite owning a collection of said devices, and knowing lots of people
who have made excellent coin developing for iOS.

Anyhow, I'd like to admire Leo as well. I have opinions. They are often based
on feelings. Those feelings are often backed up by rational thought and are
perfectly reasonable, but they are still feelings and opinions.

If you're looking for a dispassionate argument where everything is in the
passive voice, I am not the right person for you. I take the same approach to
my work. I try to make things I can admire. Or at least, I try to make things
that are less then contemptible. It's the same thing.

Anyhow, I don't think that admiring what Steve has accomplished and pointing
out his track record is inappropriate when criticizing Leo's choice of
announcement in a personal forum like this. It's a personal opinion, which
means it's _personal_.

~~~
contextfree
Thanks. Sometimes writing can convey a sense of objectivity which is not
really justified. It can be a kind of affectation, which I've been guilty of,
and can come off as pretentious or even bullying. My post had a pseudo-
objective tone, but it was my personal reaction as well.

~~~
raganwald
I'm very cool with that, and I especially agree that there are many paths to
success. IBM was especially famous for pre-announcing things to undermine the
competition. Microsoft picked that up as well, and it was an effective
business strategy.

~~~
ssharp
A successful tactic for one situation for one company is not guaranteed to
transfer.

There was once a time where some people anxiously awaited what was coming next
from Microsoft or IBM.

How many people are eagerly awaiting HP's marriage of the PC and WebOS?

~~~
jmulho
My question, unanswered after reading the link, is this: what is WebOS?

~~~
wtracy
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebOS>

------
pragmatic
I believe it means the PC's would run _BOTH_.

> every HP PC being able to run WebOS and MIcrosoft Windows as an integrated
> experience in 2012

I have an HP touch screen laptop/tablet. It has a mode where you can boot into
a "light" OS that just has a web browser.

BTW, I've never used it.

> Instant Web is an instant on software solution that allows users to quickly
> and easily get to a browser, an IM client, and their media in a secure, fast
> booting environment.

I believe its based on Splashtop: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splashtop>

------
cryptoz
I'll be blown away if HP is actually the first company to put their mobile os
on a full desktop computer. I always imagined I would love running something
like Android on a desktop; easy to use for everyone, no worries about viruses
or software updates, nice modern UI design...really, it's a wonder that these
machines don't work like that already.

I can't believe I'm rooting for HP on this one, but I sure hope this works and
I hope it kicks ass.

~~~
apl

      > no worries about viruses or software updates
    
    ?

~~~
cryptoz
Fair point. But that's the way it's _supposed_ to be. I guess my comment might
seem humorously ignorant given the current Android situation, but it'd be
tough to argue that it's not directly in Google's interest to get all that
fixed up.

On the other hand, it's not in Microsoft's interest to make software updates
easy or viruses to go away. They're side problems that other companies deal
with. HP's webOS should be more like Android than Windows, at least in the
user experience philosophy.

~~~
recoiledsnake
>On the other hand, it's not in Microsoft's interest to make software updates
easy or viruses to go away.

Huh, why not? How easier updates should get? If set to automatic, they're
almost done Chrome style (except for the reboots GRR). And what about MSE?

>HP's webOS should be more like Android than Windows

With Windows, it gets updated instantly whichever OEM built your PC. With
Android. it can take upto a year after getting released, or never come out at
all.

~~~
cryptoz
> Huh, why not?

Business. Look at IE6. Microsoft can't force system-wide updates for all their
customers, so nearly 0 customers get dramatic software improvements. Of
course, everyone gets security updates.

> With Windows, it gets updated instantly whichever OEM built your PC. With
> Android. it can take upto a year after getting released, or never come out
> at all.

This isn't really relevant to the point I'm trying to make. I understand that
right now, OEMs aren't updating Android frequently. I meant more user software
updates; my Android apps seem to get updates every week that add features, fix
bugs, etc. This process is streamlined and automatic. This is not true with
traditional desktop operating systems (aside from most Linux distros).

~~~
wvenable
Microsoft could simply add an automatic update service right into the
operating system, similar to how they have MSI for installations, and then
apps would be updated similarly. It's quite possible they're actually working
on something like that -- updates seem to get better and better all the time.

~~~
cryptoz
For at least the last 15 years, there has been no central way to upgrade user
software on Microsoft Windows. Today, in 2011, there is no way to do this.
Maybe it's coming eventually, sure. But again, these points are seriously
minor issues compared to what I'm trying to suggest:

The "mobile" OS space is consistently more user-friendly than the desktop
space.

Maybe desktops can catch up. Maybe MS is working magic behind the scenes.
Forgive me if I'm pessimistic here. I find it far more likely that there's a
slow, worldwide shift to "mobile" OSs on all computers. It'll probably
resemble some sort of iOS/Android/webOS future spawn, or something. I don't
know.

The automatic software updates was merely an example to show where "mobile"
excels and "desktop" fails. There are many others, and even those this example
may change I feel my point is still made.

~~~
wvenable
> For at least the last 15 years, there has been no central way to upgrade
> user software on Microsoft Windows.

For most of the last 15 years, most people installed their software by sliding
shiny round things into their computer.

> The "mobile" OS space is consistently more user-friendly than the desktop
> space.

Unless you want to print something. Mobile OS's are considerably more limited,
which with very little effort makes them much more user-friendly. A pocket
calculator is also consistently more user-friendly than a smartphone.

> The automatic software updates was merely an example to show where "mobile"
> excels and "desktop" fails.

But that's actually such an _easy_ problem to solve. Mobile operating systems
(and, in my cases Linux in general) are very bad at solving the hard yet
common problems -- like seamlessly printing documents or working with
arbitrary hardware and software.

I agree that there will be a shift to "mobile" OS style on computers -- it's
already happening with Mac OS X and the Mac App store. No doubt Microsoft is
already planning a UI for Windows that is also much more limited and they are
certainly working on an app store. Taking a mobile OS and making it work on a
PC is much more difficult than taking an existing desktop OS and making it
function more like a mobile OS.

~~~
sn
>Mobile operating systems (and, in my cases Linux in general) are very bad at
solving the hard yet common problems -- like seamlessly printing documents or
working with arbitrary hardware and software.

You're out of date. Printing is actually _easier_ on Linux than on Windows.

Part of why you can't take a stock version of android and install it on any
phone because the hardware discovery on cell phones is entirely lacking. Think
back to the days when you had to select the type of sound card and it's
address and all that jazz. Now apply that to every single hardware component.

------
jdub
First thing: Don't assume that this means they're going to replace Windows!
:-)

Besides the guts of the OS which talks to the hardware (a very slick Linux
build) on webOS phones, the platform is basically just HTML, CSS and
JavaScript. It has always been easy to run and debug applications in Chromium.

You can download the SDK today and run an x86 build of webOS in VirtualBox. If
you haven't played with webOS before, I urge you to try it.

Web developers who care about mobile will go absolutely bananas for it, and
their new framework 'Enyo' is an even better experience for developers.

Here's a blog post about webOS I wrote quite a while back:
[http://bethesignal.org/blog/2010/06/07/why-im-excited-
about-...](http://bethesignal.org/blog/2010/06/07/why-im-excited-about-palms-
webos/)

------
gfodor
It will be so great if HP gets its groove back. It's really sad to see one of
the great American companies flounder for so long. Ever since Carly merged it
with Compaq they've been basically stagnant, IMHO, I think WebOS might really
set them up for a big power play against Apple over the next few years.

~~~
nopassrecover
The only PC I've ever hated was a HP. Overpriced for poor parts, slow as hell
for its advertised purposes and using their provided software, and when parts
broke I had to pay for special HP parts because they used custom sizing and
screws.

~~~
jbrennan
Sounds a lot like Apple right before they bought NeXT.

------
JonoW
Just as Windows on a tablet sucks because it's not optimised for touch, isn't
WebOS on a desktop PC going to suck when using a mouse?

~~~
seanb
The thing I'd really like to see in a portable computer is a touch-
interface/mouse-interface hybrid. For example, you dock your iPad in a
keyboard docking station (with mouse), and the interface morphs into standard
OSX, with all the power and abilities that come along with that. Take it out
of the keyboard dock, and it's an iPad again, with the finger friendly iOS
touch interface (and limited to touch apps). Desktop apps and touch apps could
share data, but would ideally have different interfaces. E.g. OSX's Mail.app
and iOS's Mail app.

For HP of course, substitute webOS "slate" for iPad and custom desktop Linux
distribution for OSX (I wish).

~~~
JonoW
This is a cool idea. I'd also like to use the "full" OS when using it as a
tablet if I want to, and maybe vice versa.

------
csomar
This is a stupid idea, imho. If you want Windows as the OS, get a PC with
Windows. If you want WebOs, get a PC with WebOs. But getting one with both, is
just an annoying thing and most users won't really care.

I'm not buying a powerful machine with GBs of RAM and a dual-core processor,
to just run that WebOs thing. It works well with a tablet, but a PC is a
computer and not a tablet.

It'll be a good idea, though, to install WebOs on Free DOS machines.

~~~
glhaynes
It's impossible for me so far to picture how a dual-OS system will benefit
users. I keep hearing about some ability to boot the "little" OS when you just
want to surf the web a little... that sounds horrible and I don't at all
understand why you wouldn't just unsleep the machine from the "big" OS
instance and use that. Is it just that sleep mode doesn't work well? ... So
we're gonna throw on a whole other OS, too, to mitigate that? Surely I'm
missing something because this sounds ludicrous.

~~~
dman
How about battery life? If you could throw in a arm chip in there and have the
webOS parts always on then you could get great battery life. Essentially this
would work very similar to nvidia's optimus technology where machines ship
with a low power intel gpu alongwith an nvidia gpu. When you do real 3d work
the nvidia gpu kicks in, otherwise youre running off the intel chip. Key thing
is how seamless the transition between webos and windows is.

~~~
wmf
Dell shipped this (Latitude ON or something) and then never spoke of it again.
Yo dawg, I put a computer in your computer so now you have to learn two
different UIs, configure all your settings twice, try to sync data, etc. just
to save some battery.

------
modernerd
A shame that HP are coupling webOS with HP PCs, instead of putting webOS on
the Web, where it might better thrive and spread.

With webOS on the Web, Pre3 and TouchPad owners could log in at webos.me (or
similar) from any WebKit browser and see their apps and data pre-synced; isn't
that a better vision for a company that 'believes the Web is the future'?

HP's new Enyo SDK already allows developers to build apps for WebKit-based
browsers that resize for desktop, tablet, and mobile screens[1]; it is a joy
to use and targeting multiple screen sizes works great, so it feels like a
missed opportunity that webOS developers will spend their time building apps
in a WebKit browser, but be unable to publish them for others to use in a
WebKit browser too.

If they're trying to attract developers -- the Web offers a much larger
userbase than HP machines ever will. I think it worth sacrificing desktop and
laptop sales to build mobile sales and create a healthy future for webOS.

[1]: [http://www.precentral.net/hp-posts-enyo-development-
walkthro...](http://www.precentral.net/hp-posts-enyo-development-walkthrough)

~~~
ryanwatkins
> HP are coupling webOS with HP PCs, instead of putting webOS on the Web

There is no reason to believe they will not also do this.

Use the service architecture to allow Enyo development to expose device
specific system services (telephony, etc).

But license (open source?) Enyo for web development for pure web based apps,
or even things like PhoneGap.

------
jdavid
I think WebOS will be like Steam is on PCs or like the Apple App store is on
Mac based computers. In this case the purchasing and updating of apps will be
consistent and easy to maintain, however they will still run side by side
Photoshop and Games.

WebOS apps will run on WebTops to compete with ChromeTops on the netbook side,
but those apps will also run on the desktop.

A key difference between WebTops and WebOS apps and Chrome apps will be the
"Touch to Share" feature that will allow you to wirelessly share data between
paired devices. This will make it really easy to have a phone, watch, TV,
netbook, tablet and PC and share data between them.

I bet you will even be able to configure a home network by using some sort of
"Touch to Share" configuration stone.

Only WebOS apps will have this feature and you may need special HP hardware to
allow that functionality to work. With 100 million devices using "Touch To
Share" next year, I hope we have a click-wheel level UX experiance to Rival
Apple.

------
micheljansen
So that's why they were porting that to Windows. I just hope this won't end up
killing WebOS. It was great on the Pre, I think it will do great on a tablet,
but porting it to a PC might require HP to take WeBOS in a direction that will
be worse for the platforms it was originally designed for.

------
kilian
Maybe they can do this for their printers, too... ;)

~~~
Hoff
That might have had a ;) with it, but (if that was supposed to be a joke) you
might want to read some of the fodder from last year:

[http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/05/hp-
introducing-...](http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/05/hp-introducing-
the-webos-printer.ars)

HP did appear to be (per Mr Hurd's comments back around the time of the Palm
acquisition) considering using WebOS in their printers.

------
danlove
There are two ways this could go, using WebOS as an instant-on OS. Or some
form of framework running within Windows to allow WebOS applications to be
run, with notifications being forwarded over Wi-Fi from WebOS devices.
Remember the new Enyo framework was actually demonstrated running within
Google Chrome. Either way this could be a boast to the developer eco-system,
and reduce the cost per HP PC.

------
mahrain
The great thing about webOS is that it's all HTML5 and CSS based, even the
apps. For their mobile devices they choose to run a Linux kernel on the
hardware but in principle it doesn't matter what the kernel is, as long as
they have some way to show the apps.

~~~
camiller
Well, to start off with the initial SDK was just HTML5 and CSS. Later the PDK
was released to enable actual native level coding, most of the higher end apps
are PDK apps.

As a side note, the original iPhone was also all web technology based. It
wasn't until a year or so later that a native SDK became available.

~~~
ryanwatkins
I'd say the "higher end _game_ apps" are PDK apps, often because they're just
porting existing iOS code. They have no need for the HTML UI.

With OS 2.x there are now options for hybrid apps as well - native code, but
HTML UI. And the option to do backend work as node.js based services.

Essentially they've got a great mixed model depending on what you want to
build.

All HTML/JS in the app. Or abstract backend services but still code in js
(node.js). Or ditch all that and write a native code app with its own custom
UI. Or write a native code plugin with HTML UI.

------
hakl
I can't wait to see the implementation. Maybe they'll do something interesting
like making use of Cygwin or virtualization.

------
philthy
port over the adobe suite and textmate, maybe some other dev tools and you
will kill the market...

------
tomelders
I liked the bit where they said they'll shoehorn a mobile OS into a desktop
just for the hell of it.

I also liked the bit where it was all bollocks.

------
aschwartz18
This is crazy! Say goodbye to HP. Who will be their client base. Google will
beat them at the simple platform of straight to the internet! I have the
Google Chrome CR-48 and its my first choice to surf the internet.

When there is now an Android phone running Linux when connected to a laptop
shell, HP is doing the opposite!

~~~
danssig
"What I like/think" != "What everyone likes/thinks". This is hardly "say
goodbye to HP" material (besides to you apparently).

~~~
aschwartz18
Please explain what would make anyone buy this over Windows, Mac OSX or Google
Chrome???

