

It's Time For HP To Throw The Long Bomb And License WebOS - Happer
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/08/15/businessinsider-its-time-for-hp-to-throw-the-long-bomb-and-license-webos-2011-8.DTL

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martingordon
What HP needs to do is to get a 3.7" mobile phone and a 7" tablet out on the
market.

As part of there development program, HP sent me a Pre 2, which I used for ten
days before switching back to my iPhone 4. The OS was great to use and there
are plenty of apps out there in the App Catalog, and even more apps and tweaks
in the homebrew catalog, but the main thing that took me back to the iPhone
was the screen size (3.1" on the Pre 1 and 2, the Veer and Pixi are 2.6"). I
just couldn't get enough information on the screen at once, and scrolling and
pinching got annoying quickly.

There's a glut of 10" tablets on the market. The iPad dominates the market and
the ten or so 10" Android tablets do nothing to help HP's situation there. 7"
tablets are completely different when it comes to portability, there isn't as
much competition at this screen size, and Apple has stated that they have no
intentions to build a 7" tablet (which means that it's coming, but it's not
here yet and doesn't have 80-95% market share like the 10" iPad does). A
$250-$300 7" tablet has the opportunity to give HP a nice foothold into the
market, and once they do, they can go back and fight for 2nd place in the 10"
market. Building 7" marketshare and building consumer mindshare to eliminate
also-ran status is the only way HP (or anyone else for that matter) will have
a fighting chance in the tablet space.

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AshMokhberi
If HP are to licence webOS there is only one company out there they should
think of licensing it to and no other.

answer : HTC

HTC has all the things webOS needs.

1\. A strong dev community, just take a look at xda-developers.com. Devs have
been hacking HTC devices since the dawn of time, even back when they only made
OEM handsets. The community is dedicated and goes along with changes that HTC
make. the phone I am using now is a HTC hd2 nearly two years old it came
running Windows mobile 6.5, shortly after the HTC community hacked it to run
android off the desire, then they got it running ubuntu ( and modified it to
work with touchscreens ), then Windows phone 7, then started working on meego.
You can get any virtually any version of Android on this phone even none HTC
roms, like the dell streak. If HTC take on webOS you can be sure there will be
a version cooked up for every current HTC device by the community. If that
isn't the Dev community webOS needs then I don't know what is.

2\. they build great hardware and have a reputation for quality.

3\. they have a higher aspiration for innovation around the brand than samsung
and seem more willing to try new things.

4\. they like to focus on user experience and do a pretty good job of it. I
would not go for any flavour of Android that is not running the sense ui, a
lot of effort has been put into it and it beats the stock Android interface
every other manufacturer churns out.

I can't see how HP can do it on there own, but I can't see how they could do
it with generic licensing either. They need one and only one strong
manufacturer in the mobile space to propell webOS, and I'm sorry but I can't
see a better fit than HTC.

of course I'm sure HTC would have something to say on the matter.

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r00fus
Why not Samsung... Didn't Apotheker say something to the effect that they had
already discussed it with them?

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newman314
Sorry, this is absolutely the wrong thing to do.

We've already seen how having a integrated hw + sw solution combined with
execution has lead to success for Apple.

Palm has the sw + hw piece (for the most part), they just really need to
execute well which they have not done to date.

Licensing the OS is just going to add fragmentation as well as delay the
release process as now they would have to synchronize with carriers as well as
phone manufacturers.

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jefflinwood
I think WebOS would benefit from a wider installed base, especially in mobile
phones. HP/Palm has a limited amount of phones that they can seem to get out
there - for instance, the Palm Pre 3 was announced in February, but it's still
not out yet. Even when it comes out, I doubt it will be on all of the major US
carriers.

Why not license to HTC or Samsung - as WebOS runs on Linux, it may not be that
much trouble to take a device designed for Android to get it to run WebOS -
anyone know?

Developing for WebOS is pretty easy - it's all done in Enyo, a slick
component-driven Javascript framework. You don't end up writing much HTML or
CSS, and you can do much of your testing with Safari or Chrome on your
desktop. You're not tied to an IDE. Also there's no code signing/provisioning
issues like there are with iOS.

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ConstantineXVI
Android uses a slightly modified Linux kernel; porting wouldn't be a quick
find/replace but it'd still be easier than a totally different OS. If HP
wanted to make things even easier, they could likely do some sort of
WebOS/Android hybrid (Android's modified kernel with the WebOS userland) so
OEMs wouldn't even need to figure out the Android/WebOS low-level differences.

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aqrashik
How exactly is this different from using Android?

As long as HP makes WebOS enabled devices, wouldn't you end up with the same
potential conflicts that you would have had with Google in the first place?

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newman314
webOS does not have the Java/Dalvik baggage.

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planckscnst
Yes! If WebOS was way better than the alternatives, it might give HP an
advantage to be the only provider. However, it's not perceived as better, and
the main complaint is a lack of apps. And that is because of a lack of
popularity. That could be overcome if HP's hardware was much better than their
competitors, but it's just not.

WebOS pulls down hardware sales, and the hardware isn't doing anything to
bolster WebOS. The best shot at saving WebOS is to license it.

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mgkimsal
I disagree.

Unless HP was _very_ picky about who they license too, we'll end up with
another Android scenario, and a race to the bottom with hardware vendors doing
as little as humanly possible to make a good experience. To them, it's just a
free/cheap way of saving R&D costs.

Having said that, hardware companies already have that option in Android, so
HP _could_ take the high road and enforce strict standards for usability,
compatibility, upgrades, etc. on licensees.

I still think it's a very risky gamble. HP hasn't demonstrated that they know
how to create a winning end to end product with it yet. How would giving out
part of that recipe (with restrictions) help anyone else be successful with
it?

"the hardware isn't doing anything to bolster WebOS"

So... improve the hardware. If _HP_ as one of the largest companies in the
world (deep pockets) can't make a good piece of hardware for webOS, who else
is going to be able to?

Licensing webOS will just lead to a lot of fingerpointing between HP and other
vendors as people have bad experiences. "It's the hardware!" "No, it's the
software!" HP owns all ends of the process. If they can't make it good, it's
time to retire it (and I say this as someone who wants webOS to succeed - I
just don't think licensing it out is going to save it).

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Nelson69
I'll make an assertion about this: HP cannot make a winning end to end product
with it.

They should license it to people who can. They're too big and too out of
touch. They can provide some other valuable things, it's a well funded
heavyweight alternative to android but I don't see HP building the next killer
tablet or phone and as a consumer, I just don't think that when I see that
sort of stuff from a company like IBM or HP.

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steveb
HP needs to open source WebOS. Make it the best touchscreen interface for
Linux and build a community around it.

They don't really have any other options. They have low single-digit market
share. There's not much money to be made selling a proprietary OS for $5-15 a
copy. There is no way they can match the massive developer communities around
Google/Apple/MS.

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bergie
Here are the open source parts of webOS:
<http://opensource.palm.com/3.0.2/index.html>

At least some webOS games run on Maemo with this stuff...
<http://gitorious.org/preenv> <http://wiki.maemo.org/Preenv>

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RexRollman
I think licensing WebOS will dilute it and I don't see it being successful.
The problem for WebOS, as I see it, is lack of apps; especially for tablets.

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yardie
But it has more tablet-capable apps than android. ~300 at last count.

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RexRollman
That is a real good point. I wonder why there are so few.

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nknight
What IS webOS? Under the hood, I mean. I know it uses a Linux kernel, but past
that, all I've really heard is about the only option for applications being
HTML/JavaScript. My somewhat subconscious impression to date has been that
it's really just WebKit with some nice "web"apps and extra hardware
integration.

If that's the case, I don't really understand what either HP or anyone else
would get out of it being licensed to other manufacturers.

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Synaesthesia
webOS is a fully fledged mobile OS. Yeah Linux Kernel. The way you write apps
and lay them out is very similar to HTML/Javascript, and the rendering engine
is a modified version of webkit. However, it supports native applications too.

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nodata
So what does that make webOS? If I take the Linux kernel, and put webkit on
top, in what way would it be different to webOS?

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bronson
Launcher, notification manager, settings manager, appstore, developer kit,
consistent theming and widgets, etc etc etc.

You know, all that stuff that Linux users have a hard time caring about but
really appeal to regular people and devs.

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nknight
None of this really seems to clear up my confusion.

I guess my question is closer to, how is webOS hard to duplicate? How is it
special?

As someone who's never actually had a webOS device, I've been given little
reason to think about them, so I might just be missing how polished it is or
something. This still points to a major marketing problem, though. HP hasn't
told the world why it should care about webOS.

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untog
"how is webOS hard to duplicate? How is it special?"

Couldn't you say that about any OS that's based on open source software?
WebOS's big differentiator is things like UI, which _are_ difficult to
duplicate well.

