Today, HP decided to drop an early Christmas present for WebOs loyalists and development. A few month prior things looked bleak for HP after spending $1.2 billion on Palm only to have their Tablets collect dust and carriers refusing to carry their devices.
It almost seemed like an end to WebOS when BesyBuy and other distributors decided to send all their stock of TouchPads back, forcing HP into making the best of it and selling it at a loss on a fire sale. People were able to get their hands on a HP Touchpad for as low as 99$ – 149$ depending on capacity. Even though HP officially discontinued the HP TouchPad they still maintained updates and promised that WebOS would live on.
Still, the future of WebOs seemed uncertain as HP itself seems to have went on to reshuffling, and talks broke out of possibilities of licensing the os, selling to os, or even as far as selling off the entire consumer division of HP. These talks eventually came to an end as HP denied any ongoing effort to sell their divisions but the future of WebOs remained shrouded.
Fast forward to today, HP has finally decided on a course for WebOS, it will now be distributed under an open source license. While certain components of WebOs were always open source like the Linux Kernel which was distributed under the GPL license. HP has yet to announce under which open source license they plan to release the source code.
This effectively moves HP from competing in the iphone’s business model to direct competition against Android. HP was quick to point out in the press release though, that they plan to keep a tight grip on licensees to prevent fragmentation.
Personally I think the best start for WebOs would be to include the ability to run Android Applications, this will pave doors open for larger app support until they can build up their own app library.
What do you make of this? Does this put a new interest in webos? Are you already really thinking about porting WebOs to that TP2?
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WebOs on my TP2? Now that could be amazing! Don’t forget TouchPads go on sale again Sun at 6pm…refurbs, but $99 for the 16gbz!
@Recursion, btw, hp selling them via ebay.
@Recursion, Here’s the link for those interested: http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-TouchPad-Wi-Fi-16GB-Refurbished-FB355UAR-ABA-/170746761917?pt=US_Tablets&hash=item27c14cd2bd
I want WebOs + android market
@eyeb, I don’t know about Google, but I think Amazon should capitalize on this, its an easy opportunity. Maybe even sign a contract to have amazon appstore pre-installed.
Considering that even Google Chrome has been an epic failure, I expect that WebOS will continue to be worthless to anyone other than enthusiasts and the XDA/PPCG communities… even if they do manage to “port” the ability to run Android apps, which I think is unlikely.
@GoodThings2Life, You mean Google Chrome OS or Google Chrome browser? Cause the browser is doing fairly well…
As for porting Android apps, its not that unlikely. You can run Ubuntu apps on WebOs. Both WebOs and Android are based on Linux.
@gTen,
I mean the OS.
@gTen,
As for porting apps, I didn’t imply it would be difficult, I said it would be unlikely to help the platform. I think it will be a “hack” at best and not something official. Turning WebOS into the Baskin Robins of the Android UI’s will diminish the platform outside of the enthusiast community.
@GoodThings2Life, Not really, your not porting Android’s UI to it, it will be similar to Android Player for RIM Playbook which is official.
If implemented correctly it can work, and example of success stories is Adobe Flash and Java. Adobe also has an Adobe AIR thing going which you can make cross platform apps on. Adding Android Player will allow for more apps to be available.
Trust me, Android Player for WebOs would be awesome, if you ever played with WebOS you will understand why it will fit so well, the card based UI and top corner Menu will make most Android Apps transparent
That said, that is why I said Amazon is probably a better partner because Amazon can vet the apps to make sure only those that work properly will show up in the appstore.
TP2…….do they mean the HTC Touch Pro 2?! I thought those things were buried with the rest of the dinosaurs?!
Classic HP move. Buy something. Kill it. Bury the ashes on the Internet.