No, HP, you’re off the mark

HP, Dell, SAP, Oracle, Motorola, Autonomy... it feels like 1999 all over again. These companies made their own beds – rather arrogantly, too – and now they pay the piper. The whole phenomenon of the "enterprise" is drying up. I see it first hand in my job every day – big companies are moving to smaller web-based operations in every area except where the 90's-era integrators and software vendors have them locked in. The House of Cards those vendors built (with their take-or-leave it anti-user attitude and ever-growing army of aggro sales-bots) is collapsing inward on them. They're all pimping "services" that, when you read the contract are essentially a "pay us and we will do as we please" arrangement. I have never met a salesperson from HP/EDS, SAP, Oracle, etc. who didn't evoke the Pink Floyd song "Dogs":

And after a while, you can work on points for style. Like the club tie, and the firm handshake, A certain look in the eye and an easy smile. You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to, So that when they turn their backs on you, You'll get the chance to put the knife in. You gotta keep one eye looking over your shoulder. You know it's going to get harder, and harder, and harder as you get older. And in the end you'll pack up and fly down south, Hide your head in the sand, Just another sad old man, All alone and dying of cancer.

HP should just open-source WebOS and see some real competition. I personally think WebOS could very well be the WebKit to Android's Firefox. It's extremely elegant. So sad to see it go to waste.

Rather than have it die in a proprietary silo, open it up like Netscape did with its codebase. Once it hits the scene I really think it would capture people's imaginations. Plus, it ain't Java (tm)