
HP PC Boss: Shutting down of WebOS is “unfounded rumor” - evo_9
http://venturebeat.com/2011/10/29/hp-pc-boss-shutting-down-webos-is-unfounded-rumor/
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bstar77
I think the reality is, they don't know what the hell to do with webos. In
owning a touchpad myself, I see a bit of the reality distortion effect that
affects all of us webos users. Webos succeeds in the emotional attachment, but
fails in just about everything else. I love this thing so much, but it really
sucks when you compare it to an iPad, or even an android tablet.

Hp made the best decision by going with windows8 moving forward. Ms has a much
better tablet foundation with metro and will have the resources to make sure
win8 will be a success. Webos has no hope, I'm sad to say. I think the best
thing to happen for us consumers is to see webos open sourced and see what the
community does with it.

I'm curious to see what Whitman decides... I bet she gets sucked into this
vocal, but minority webs support group and drops more resources on this dead
platform. Don't envy HPs situation.

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mgkimsal
i thought it already was open source?

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MatthewPhillips
Not the fun parts.

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daimyoyo
I know Amazon spent a lot of money to develop the Andriod skin they are going
to use in the Fire, but I think they should buy webOS. That way they can build
the same ecosystem Apple has. If they had their own OS no one else could use,
and customers with credit card numbers on file, they could get the same
seamless experience that Apple used to capture the tablet market. Also, I
think they should sell them at to loss to build a userbase since they'll make
a lot of money when customers load the tablet up with content.

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MatthewPhillips
Android is Apache licensed, Amazon won't have to share any of their custom
code.

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rbanffy
If nobody makes WebOS devices, is the division really operating?

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duskwuff
Seeing as how HP no longer has any devices for sale which use WebOS, the
shutdown of the WebOS unit seems like a foregone conclusion at this point.

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ra
I truly hope WebOS, or at least enyo, has a bright future somewhere.

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eli
It may be a rumor. It may even be false. But it is not unfounded.

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bluemoon
It seems like they up and changed their mind about it, but then again it could
truly be an unfounded rumor

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veemjeem
If so, they'll need to rehire all those people that left the company a few
months ago. A friend of mine who worked on the stylus interface left a month
ago, and I doubt he'd return.

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anonymous666
If it's an "unfounded rumor", why does HP has cancelled some external projects
working with WebOS ?

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wavephorm
If they are actively seeking a sale of the platform, any idea how much they'd
want for it? They spent billions on the acquisition of Palm, and somehow I
doubt they'll even be able to sell a dying platform.

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mmahemoff
Whatever the patents are worth.

Most journalists, forget webOS integrated Node before most people had even
heard of it. The platform has so much potential. If they'd given away devices
to developers instead of announcing the platform's demise and giving devices
away anyway, it still stood some chance. But now it's been well and truly
buried by HP.

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cpeterso
Does HP actually own Palm's patents? Reading Wikipedia's description of Palm's
IP changing hands feels like watching a game of Three-card Monte.

After Palm split its hardware and software divisions into the palmOne and
PalmSource companies, Japanese company ACCESS acquired PalmSource. Wikipedia
says that palmOne later paid ACCESS $44M for the _rights to the source code
for Palm OS Garnet_ and that Palm could "modify the licensed software as
needed and did not need to pay royalties to ACCESS." So who owns which Palm
patents?

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PalmOne#PalmOne>

This Engadget article from October 2010 ( _after_ HP acquired Palm in July
2010) says that ACCESS licensed some PalmSource patents to Microsoft. That
suggests that ACCESS still has (some?) Palm patents.

[http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/08/microsoft-licenses-
dozens...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/08/microsoft-licenses-dozens-of-
patents-from-access-and-acacia-in/)

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shareme
hmm 75% of webOS engineering staff left HP, I do no think the choice is up to
them anymore

