HP Just Announced It's Doing WebOS PCs--Time For Microsoft To Worry?

HP Just Announced It's Doing WebOS PCs--Time For Microsoft To Worry?



Jay Yarow | Feb. 9, 2011, 3:09 PM

HP just sent a shot at Microsoft, announcing plans to bring its mobile operating system, WebOS, to desktop computers this year.

Considering HP is the world's biggest PC maker, this could have serious reverberations.

HP exec Todd Bradley said, "Do the math on two PCs per second. You easily exceed 100 million devices with WebOS deployed annually. That's the start of something pretty big."

Sure, Microsoft will still power most -- like 99.99% -- of HP's computers for the next year or two. But after that, if HP pours resources into WebOS, it could actually start chipping away at Microsoft.

The odds are slim that it actually affects Microsoft, but it just shows how little confidence Microsoft's traditional partners have in Microsoft these days.

Dell is working with Google on Android phones and tablets. And now HP is building its own software.

Nothing stays on top forever. Microsoft will eventually lose its dominance.

jonathan wrote:Nothing stays on top forever. Microsoft will eventually lose its dominance.

On a PC, I don't know. Dell tried this with Ubuntu and it didn't get a lot of traction. But i think as more and more people start using tablet PCs Microsoft is doomed to failure, because Steve Ballmer insists that making a tablet and cramming the desktop version of Windows on it will sell, even though it flops every time it's been tried.

This is good news for Linux, though.

As I said on tostoday's vid on this subject, it's a great thing but I can imagine a lot of people wondering what the heck this "not-Windows" thing is and demanding ol' Winblows..

Which I find rather frustrating that people can be like that, but what can you do I guess.

hhmmmm. Quite interesting.....

Eventually some Operating System running the Linux Kernel will gain mass adoption.... when and what... who knows.....
HP have the resources to bring webOS to the mainstream on Desktops to a minor degree alongside Windows and MacOSX.... only time will tell though....
Can't say I would run it though since it's a Proprietary Operating system running on the Linux Kernel..... but maybe there is some potential for it. I personally Hope Android will make it onto the Desktop as a fully fledged Operating System since the name is so familiar in the mobile phone world...... People Love android and I don't think ChromeOs is going to cut it

Who knows.... maybe I am just speaking garbage.......

mm I have to agree on the Android part. I love Android too and would much prefer it's flexibility to that of ChromeOS. In fact if I had a netbook or something I'd probably love to have an Android system on it too (keep Arch on the desktop )

I have yet to try chrome or android. I'm glad to see all these operating systems that can compete with Windows.

I've used WebOS and Android. WebOS is far superior in my opinion, and HP's as well, since they are sinking all this money into it. Palm did it a great disservice though by putting it on awful hardware. The Palm Pre was an awful phone, it literally fell apart after 6 months. My mother got one and she had to have it replaced 6 times during her two year contract. But the OS on it was beautiful.

I think the strategy would be to make the Webos pc's a good deal cheaper to entice customers to it.

kaddy wrote:hhmmmm. Quite interesting.....


Can't say I would run it though since it's a Proprietary Operating system running on the Linux Kernel..... but maybe there is some potential for it. I personally Hope Android will make it onto the Desktop as a fully fledged Operating System since the name is so familiar in the mobile phone world...... People Love android and I don't think ChromeOs is going to cut it

I had this discussion with a friend of mine on Facebook. WebOS has a lot more elements of Linux in it than Android does:




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebOS#Platform

"Underneath the graphical user interface sits a software stack that has much in common with mainstream Linux distributions for desktop computers. WebOS 1.0.x uses — among other components — the Linux kernel 2.6.24,[59] Upstart, GStreamer as a multimedia framework, libpurple for instant messaging, Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) for game programming, PulseAudio for audio management, and WebKit.[60] Applications for webOS are written in JavaScript, HTML and some other common Web technologies, which are handled by WebKit, as well as C and C++. It supports streaming video in RTSP, H.263, and H.264 formats.[61] The list of open source components used by the different releases of WebOS, as well as the source code of and patches applied to each component, can be accessed at the Palm Open Source web page.[62] This page also serves as a reference listing the versions of WebOS that have been publicly released."

Swathe wrote:I think the strategy would be to make the Webos pc's a good deal cheaper to entice customers to it.

Probably. I think they might sell more if they keep it hush hush that WebOS is Linux, since the term scares a lot of people away.

In my opinion, it will be hard for them to catch up with Android on phones and tablets. I have no idea what WebOS will look like on a PC. WebOS had the chance to be where Android is today, but Palm blew it by putting it on shoddy hardware. It's got a huge deficit to dig it's way out of, but I hope it makes it.

true eh

but from what I understand... Google fully release Android's source code where as WebOS doesn't.....

http://source.android.com/

http://source.android.com/faqs.html

Even though it uses an Apache 2.0 Licence.... it is every bit Open as Gpl

1. Allow free redistribution – Check
2. Give out un-obfuscated source code – Check
3. Allow modifications and derived works – Check
4. Allow distribution of modifications (as patches) or modified software as a whole. Can restrict the modified versions from using original name of software – Check
5. No discrimination against any person or groups – Check
6. No restriction of using the software on any device or field – Check
7. No additional license needed – Check
8. No product-specific license – Check
9. No restriction on software distributed along with original software – Check
10. Technology neutral, i.e., no preference for an individual technology or user interface – Check

So, Android is true to each and every point that being open demands to it

Fair enough. I was just making the point that WebOS has more common elements with desktop Linux distributions than Android does. gsrtreamer, libpurple, and pulseaudio. (Although I don't know if I'd consider pulseaudio as an asset to be bragging about.) Of course all this was before HP acquired it. I have no idea what it looks like in the next incarnation.

kaddy wrote:true eh

but from what I understand... Google fully release Android's source code where as WebOS doesn't.....

http://source.android.com/

http://source.android.com/faqs.html

Even though it uses an Apache 2.0 Licence.... it is every bit Open as Gpl

1. Allow free redistribution – Check
2. Give out un-obfuscated source code – Check
3. Allow modifications and derived works – Check
4. Allow distribution of modifications (as patches) or modified software as a whole. Can restrict the modified versions from using original name of software – Check
5. No discrimination against any person or groups – Check
6. No restriction of using the software on any device or field – Check
7. No additional license needed – Check
8. No product-specific license – Check
9. No restriction on software distributed along with original software – Check
10. Technology neutral, i.e., no preference for an individual technology or user interface – Check

So, Android is true to each and every point that being open demands to it

I think you're missing one point there, and that's what license it's re released under. I do believe that the gpl forces you to re release under gpl. Correct me if I'm wrong though.