What HP Really Bought From Palm: A Mobile Future Untethered From Microsoft | Hacker News Reader

What HP Really Bought From Palm: A Mobile Future Untethered From Microsoft

tech.fortune.cnn.com

50 pointshornokplease29 comments

I think this is incredibly exciting.

Apple has been able to create a seamless experience because it owns its entire PC chain, from designing the computer hardware through building the operating system through, in the iOS devices at least, approving individual software applications.

HP is the largest PC manufacturer in the world, and has significant market share in related markets like printers, cameras, and so on. I love that they're actually thinking about using this power to muscle in on what's hitherto been Apple's turf. They're creating a similarly seamless experience, but they're doing it at a better price, with far better distribution than Apple currently has, and with features that Apple hasn't managed to launch yet.

Seamless wire-free syncing, tethering, sharing and charging between elegant devices running an extremely user-friendly multitasking operating system? Awesome. Doing this with a development platform that innovative web developers can get up to speed with quickly? Even better.

And if they continue on Palm's path, it will be vastly more open than Apple and even Android. You can get root access to the linux based OS on the pre by just downloading a program and punching in a code on the phone, both of which come straight from Palm, and it doesn't void your warranty.

> but they're doing it at a better price, with far better distribution than Apple currently has, and with features that Apple hasn't managed to launch yet.

The price has not been announced and the Apple iPad 2 will release before this device! I think your enthusiasm is a bit premature.

My question is how many mobile operating systems can the market really support? Apple has a huge lead in both devices and apps but Android is catching up fast. The Touchpad might be a great device, but what good will it be when all the cool apps are on other platforms?

[Edit: Added not]

I think you meant "...has not been..." and I agree with your points. However, one thing I have noticed among my friends and myself with apps is that there really only needs to be a few dozen apps and 80% of the planet are (is?) happy. Look at how static the top apps for ipad and iphone are month after month.

Provided porting an app to a new platform isn't too arduous then it could work out. Games especially, they are typically very easily ported since most run atop game engines that are very easily recompiled.

That said, I think Apple will eclipse HP with iPad2 and they have the 'cool' brand recognition. Think HP and you think printers still. Blackberry on the other hand...

Let's wait for the battery spec to really see how this thing will work out. Apple cut many many corners to give the ipad fabulous battery life and the video I have seen of the touchpad makes it look really slow, very unsnappy performance. Possibly they are running developer builds and it will be faster when it ships.

There's the famous quote about software features: most people only use 10% but they all use a different 10%. Windows XP SP2 was held up because Deer Hunter wouldn't run but I doubt most people on hacker news have ever even played it.

Sure, every platform might end up with a copy of Angry Birds but the more fringe the platform the smaller the selection. It's almost guaranteed that not a single innovative app or game will come to WebOS first. And who knows how long it'll take the platform to even get Angry Birds. That's a significant disadvantage to owning a Touchpad.

I'm on the fence as to whether or not HP should have used the Palm brand for all this technology. It seems a logical choice to use Palm but the HP brand implies size, money, and staying power that Palm hasn't had recently.

For what it's worth, Angry Birds was ported to webOS last summer:

http://pdnblog.palm.com/2010/08/interviewing-the-master-eagl...

The problem of multiple mobile operating systems comes from the focus on native apps. I don't use that many, instead doing almost everything over the web. This is great, as it frees me to work across my MeeGo, iOS, Maemo and Ubuntu devices as I see fit, without being stuck with any of them.

Microsoft's Proposition: Bundle our OS, and you can join the rest of the hardware pack in a race to the thinnest margins and the most undifferentiated offerings, while we get rich taxing every unit you sell.

Google's Proposition: Bundle our OS, and you can join the rest of the hardware pack in a race to the thinnest margins and the most undifferentiated offerings, while we get rich advertising to (y)our user base.

HP has figured out that even though Android is "free," bundling Android with their hardware is the same business model as bundling Windows.

I'm pretty sure every hardware maker realize that, but they also realize that is what won last time. Everyone wants to roll their own, but that is a risky venture (Palm couldn't hack it). Hitching your wagon to Windows/Android is better than going on your own and failing miserably.

It's that or be sidelined as a commodity hardware manufacturer, though. Despite Samsung, HTC, Moto et al's best efforts (Sense UI and other things they've been tacking onto their Android devices), it's pretty clear that the UX is driven by Google. This handicaps (if not virtually eliminates) their ability to differentiate and brand their products.

After all, the only real difference between a Samsung and HTC is hardware - few people care about the custom bits on top.

Also, I don't think you give Palm enough credit. webOS is a solid product that had a solid enough launch. If Palm hadn't run out of cash, and their marketing wasn't so ass-backwards, they might've stood a chance. IMHO with a bottomless moneypit like HP backing them, they can put up a real fight.

The level of differentiation seems to be very small on Android indeed. It looks like almost every week there is the "new hot Android superphone" that reigns supreme, only to be surpassed a week later when the next phone comes out from another Asian manufacturer packing in yet another processor core.

Google is going to be making money from advertising to HP (and everybody else)'s customers anyway, unless they've got alternatives for Youtube, Gmail, Google Nav, Google Ads and Google Search cooking in the labs. This even applies to Apple though they've made tentative steps in some of those areas.

Could enterprise software development become "fun" if WebOS fulfills it's potential? Funny to think of BeOS and BeIA becoming HP's NextStep. There's a lot riding on this at HP. I'm not familiar with their executive leadership, other than that Leo Apotheker comes from an enterprise computing background, but a good evaluation of where that leadership comes from will be important at divining what's ahead. Microsoft should be terrified. If anyone can rip enterprise customer's out of Microsoft's grip it's going to be HP.

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/company-information/executive-team/...

HP certainly seems to be trying really hard to support developers. For example, get a $200 developer discount on an unlocked Pre 2. I'm sure they'll have something similar for the Palm Pre 3.

http://developer.palm.com/index.php?option=com_content&v...

Now's a good time to speculate long-term on HP stock. If they do well with WebOS and spin it off to their other computing platforms they could become the "Apple" of enterprise computing. If they /really/ do well maybe people will want to take their work equipment home with them instead of wanting to take their Macs/iphones into work...

Wow the writing in this piece is atrocious.

"Let's be very clear, the competition is Apple (AAPL), but those hardware companies who would take on the gang from Cupertino, HP among them, have one huge disadvantage, they don't really do software."

"What HP did when it dropped $1.2 billion on Palm, was signal that software is finally front and center for the largest PC company on the planet."

Commas are great, they help you get away, for example, with run-on sentences, the only thing is, you can't just put them anywhere.

I, beg, to differ. They, should, be used, judisciously.

Well, except that according to a few news outlets, WebOS will be coming to desktops and notebooks as a layer _on top of_ Windows. But of course that can be a transitional stage.

What? Source? I haven't heard of this before. That makes zero sense. Do you have any actual information about this?

The Business Insider reported that they were told this by an HP spokesman: After the event, a spokesperson explained that WebOS would probably ship as a customized user interface running on top of Windows, very similar to HP's TouchSmart today.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/hps-webos-pcs-will-run-on-win...

I would also note that the linked Fortune article is referring to HP's mobile future, so it is not really discussing the PC business.

This is the first I've heard of this, but I think it actually makes a lot of sense. This allows HP to market WebOS as a true phone/table/desktop OS much like Apple now does with iOS and Mac OS (especially now with the Mac app store). They already have their TouchSmart shell with "TouchSmart Apps" and games, so this is a very smart move.

I just googled HP Touchsmart to see what it is. I'm amazed to discover that HP already has a range of iMac style all-in-one computers with touchscreens. And they ship with software that allows you to buy touch-enabled games and comic reading apps etc.

Seems like great synergy with WebOS, particularly as the review I found rated the hardware highly but thought the current software sucked. In fact they specifically noted the then recent purchase of Palm and speculated that webOS on a touch enabled PC would be a good move.

edit: they've got one of those convertible laptop/tablet things with the swivel hinge in the range too.

HP needs to completely open up the application and extension aspect of webOS. As a pre HP Verizon Palm Pre phone user, I find the app store to be extremely lacking. You don't have anywhere near the number or quality of apps available on other platforms to choose from. There needs to be a substantial developer base for webOS to really take off. I have used the Palm SDK, and I think it could use some work as well especially in the area of device hardware support.

The buyout of Palm shocked the system a little and the wheels are looking like they are starting to roll. Hopefully HP decides to leave their devices as 'open' as the Linux based webOS is.

Bingo. The most open device is going to win this race, and it won't be any vendor that locks developers into an "app store" or any specific language/runtime.

Most people forget that the reason the PC took off like it did was because a developer could do whatever they wanted with the machine. It was a blank slate that could run multiple operating systems be used with many different languages. Many vendors today are purposefully taking a very open architecture and locking it down tight, which is a very anti-developer stance to take, and contrary to (what history shows as) the path to success.

> The most open device is going to win this race [...]

The above is very far from clear at this point. In case you didn't notice it, the App Store just hit 10 billion downloads [1]. I'd say that's a pretty relevant bit of history. Also note the amazing 60 apps per idevice [2]. And don't conflate openness with developer profitability -- in one case, Microsoft had both, but it's not clear that the latter leads to the former. Right now, I'd guess there's easily one or two magnitudes more developers supporting themselves with iOS apps than with android apps.

The fact that my gf and mom's iphone and ipad can't run random executables is, IMO, a feature not a bug. I got so tired of telling them, "No, do NOT click yes on any dialog box. Do not install anything. Do not agree to anything. etc" And yet somehow, spyware / crap always ended up on their damn computers. Apple's vision of utility computing, where the computer is a tablet or a phone that just bloody works is one of the best things that can happen to computing intended for widespread adoption. Further, curation of apps similarly is awesome for them. I'm not as stoked about it for myself, but I'm very clearly a distinct minority.

[1] http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/22/apples-app-store-hits-10-...

[2] http://www.readwriteweb.com/mobile/2011/01/more-than-60-apps...

I guess you like to be told what you can do and what you can like on your device. Nothing wrong with that...

He said "I'm not as stoked about it for myself", so I would wager that he does not like to be told what he can do and what he can like.

The question is this: have we seen a truly open device on the market yet ? If not, then none of the stats that you quote really mean much, at least at this point.

They need to make this easy as possible. As someone who has developed for iPhone, BB, Android and Palm, they need to make it as easy as installing one program, as you do for the iPhone. All you need to do with the iPhone is install xcode, and you can start making iOs apps straight away, and get them running on the simulator.

BB and Android are a huge pain in the ass, and turn of people just wanting to get started, not fool around with setting up annoying tools.

Interesting note is that WebOS internals are not that different from MeeGo: http://opensource.palm.com/2.0.0/index.html

So HP is trying to redeem itself from the huge blunder with Woz some 30 years ago!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com