

Why Amazon buying webOS from HP is a no-brainer - mrsebastian
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/97995-why-amazon-buying-webos-from-hp-is-a-no-brainer

======
cek
This article is just crazy talk.

Amazon is not a device company, has never been a device company, and has no
intention of becoming a device company. It would only acquire a boat anchor
like webOS if it had no reasonable alternative (and even then I doubt it). It
has plenty of alternatives.

Kindle as a device is simply a near term means to an end: To ensure that there
are phenomenal ways for consumers to access the Amazon cloud services.

Amazon has no desire to make $ directly off of devices. It has been happy to
sell them at a loss, and will continue to be happy to (to a point). They will
also continue to be happy to invest in great experiences that run on other
devices (Kindle software for iPhone/iPad/Android/WP7/PC/web as well as the
Amazon.com store).

Repeat after me: Stop focusing on the device. Device centric computing is
done.

Cloud+Devices+People is the future. Amazon knows this as well as anyone and is
in a great position to capitalize on it.

~~~
trebor
In other words, we'll regress from having a PC to a net-enabled
terminal—they'll just be called "smartphones" and "tablets" instead. Just like
computing started it looks like there is a trend to, again, go back to the
terminal model.

~~~
cek

        "There is nothing new in this world." - Some wise person
    

You could paint it that way, but I choose to view it differently.

The "new" terminals are far smarter. Nobody will ever confuse them with dumb
terminals.

There are a wide range of popular form-factors (phone, tablet, TV, car, watch,
browser, PC, signage, ...) where in the old terminal model there was one
(~PC).

And the kicker: The "app" is now designed to not only SPAN all of those
devices but to do so in a rich, people-centric way. That "rich way", by the
way, requires huge client side computing resources.

Lastly, I said "people-centric" above because the actual equation for the new
value proposition is:

    
    
        experience = people + devices + cloud services
    

Note all entities are plural.

------
LeafStorm
I think what I wrote the last time this came up on HN still applies:

"Amazon's already invested a lot in the Android platform with the Amazon
Appstore and all the other assorted Amazon Android apps. Considering that
migrating to WebOS would require Amazon to:

(a) actually obtain the rights to WebOS (whereas with Android they can just
fork a version from git),

(b) retool all their existing app infrastructure to support WebOS, and

(c) promote WebOS to developers when probably the only WebOS device that would
be available to them would be the new Kindle and the fire-saled Touchpads,

I don't really see them moving to WebOS, or away from Android in general,
anytime soon."

------
Semiapies
Did the meaning of "no-brainer" change to "the action of someone without a
brain" while I wasn't looking?

------
llch
An argument of why they won't buy webOS from HP -- IMO, Amazon shows its focus
on recent launch. They didn't release an Android phone, but just an Android
tablet to build their empire of content. Hence they don't need
differentiations on hardware/OS level, instead they want a hardware/OS which
they can: push their cost way down; cheap enough to get people on board; and
sell their content.

~~~
r00fus
Not to mention, Microsoft and Oracle are busy strong-arming Android companies
like Google and HTC to making Android _not cheap_.

WebOS may not be as widely deployed as Android, but it comes with a patent
portfolio that may keep it cheaper than litigation/licenses.

------
metageek
> _the argument could be made that Palm invented the smartphone_

Didn't Qualcomm beat them to it? I remember reading about a Qualcomm phone
which was a PalmOS device, around 2000 or 2001. At that time, I don't think
Palm had any smartphones of their own; the closest they had was the Palm V,
which had wireless data, but was not a phone.

------
mun2mun
Amazon don't have access to Honeycomb source which supports larger screen. May
be it is one of the reasons to think about buying webOS. Don't know how
difficult it is to add support for larger screen in Android 2.2/2.3 though.

~~~
mseebach
I would find it hard to believe that Amazon can't call up Google saying they
need in on Honeycomb to make a Kindle run Android.

~~~
glhaynes
Why would Google give it to them?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Because they'd already promised to release it anyway and they were buying at
most 6 months lead time on a 'competitor' at the cost of forking their app
base between two popular flavors of Android.

~~~
glhaynes
Does Google want Amazon's fork to succeed? They sure haven't welcomed them to
the family...

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Given Sun's welcome to Android, I wouldn't assume a warm welcome is a reliable
indicator of whether motives are benign, or legally binding if they later
change.

I don't particularly think that Google are popping champagne about the Kindle
Fire, but if they had to choose I'm guessing they'd rather a Kindle Fire than
a Windows 8 tablet or an iPad every time. Or indeed a hypothetical Kindle Fire
from Amazon that ran iPhone Apps on a Windows kernel rather than being
Android-based. (I was going to write WebOS there, but I think that's fairly
positive for Google too)

------
falcolas
I think the clause about patents is right on. Given the current spate of
lawsuits against tablets and android, building up a defensive patent portfolio
makes good sense.

------
sliverstorm
You know, if Amazon aquired webOS that might even give them the opportunity to
enter the cell phone market, which could be a logical next step after the
Fire...

Oh, for a cell phone with an E-ink display...

~~~
modeless
Why would you want a cell phone with e-ink? It wouldn't improve the standby
time at all since that's determined by the radio, not the screen. Sunlight
readability would be nice but there are LCDs that are pretty good and anything
interactive would be painful on a slow e-ink display.

~~~
bad_user

        It wouldn't improve the standby time at all since 
        that's determined by the radio, not the screen.
    

In smartphones the display is the biggest consumer of battery.

For instance, I rarely use my Android smartphone, other than for making calls
/ reading emails (and I really don't do that frequently), and the display is
usually eating up ~ 30% of my battery, even though I always keep my data
connection + sync ON. And there's nothing that drains my battery faster than
doing Internet browsing, with the stats on my Android showing the display
taking more than 50% of battery life. And if I'm outside, in the sun, browsing
the web ; to make the screen readable I have to increase luminosity, and so my
phone drops dead in 2-3 hours.

Another example - I also have an old Nokia 1100 - it's absolutely insane how
the battery lasts for a whole week. If you can make your smartphone last for
6-7 days with whatever you want turned off, let me know ;)

I would also like an e-Ink smartphone, since it would be perfect for reading
emails, in direct sunlight and also increase the battery life to more than 1
day - yeah, that would be awesome.

~~~
modeless
If the screen uses 30% of your battery then switching to e-ink would be a 30%
improvement at best. Hardly Nokia 1100 territory. Though it would be so slow
and annoying to use that you wouldn't use it as much, so that would "help"
too. Also, need I remind you that your Nokia 1100 has an LCD screen?

~~~
bad_user
The Nokia 1100 has an LCD screen indeed, but it is black and white, without
much luminosity.

~~~
modeless
Right; the only resl advantage e-ink has over this type of low-power LCD is
brightness, and it comes at the cost of 1+ second response time with
flickering. A terrible trade off for an interactive phone.

