4 ms·

Any idea why Palm doesn't take its (arguably) strongest asset, the webOS, and license it out to other phone makers? Apple wouldn't mess with Palm/the phone make

Any idea why Palm doesn't take its (arguably) strongest asset, the webOS, and license it out to other phone makers? Apple wouldn't mess with Palm/the phone makers because Palm still holds a considerable chunk of patents, and that'd get some cash flowing into Palm again.

roc 17y ago
What's the upside of paying money to a shaky company to license a struggling webOS, as compared to paying nothing to a huge stable company for healthy Android or paying money to a huge stable company for interesting-if-unproven Phone7? As the article states: the market has largely spoken on webOS. Customers aren't choosing it based on its strengths. And when they choose its competitors, they do so for reasons that correlate strongly with webOS's weaknesses.
- mattmaroon 17y ago
  That's just a silly argument. There are thousands of factors going into which phone you buy, just one of which (and not the biggest) is the OS. I don't think the poor sales are at all indicative of the quality of the OS, and even if they're indicative of the perceived quality (which I'd argue is still not true) that's more of a marketing problem.
- pkulak 17y ago
  I'd say WebOS's weaknesses are 100% hardware. App store, sure, but that's because no one has a Pre or Pixi because they are cheap pieces of plastic crap. Put WebOS on the HTC Supersonic and just try to keep that thing in stock.
  - roc 17y ago
    You don't think the media experience pales in comparison to the iPhone? Or the customisability/flexibility pales in comparison to Android?
    - megaman821 17y ago
      The default music playing app is much better on the iPhone. Other than that you can get videos from Youtube and break.com. You can play music in the background with Pandora, Grooveshark, Slacker Radio, or Radio Time. You can upload photos and video to Youtube, Facebook, Flickr. As for a flexibility, look at the WebOS hacking community. WebOS is running on a Linux that isn't very far away from stock (closer than Android for sure). Just last week they got the QT framework running on it.

roc 17y ago

What's the upside of paying money to a shaky company to license a struggling webOS, as compared to paying nothing to a huge stable company for healthy Android or paying money to a huge stable company for interesting-if-unproven Phone7? As the article states: the market has largely spoken on webOS. Customers aren't choosing it based on its strengths. And when they choose its competitors, they do so for reasons that correlate strongly with webOS's weaknesses.

mattmaroon 17y ago
That's just a silly argument. There are thousands of factors going into which phone you buy, just one of which (and not the biggest) is the OS. I don't think the poor sales are at all indicative of the quality of the OS, and even if they're indicative of the perceived quality (which I'd argue is still not true) that's more of a marketing problem.
pkulak 17y ago
I'd say WebOS's weaknesses are 100% hardware. App store, sure, but that's because no one has a Pre or Pixi because they are cheap pieces of plastic crap. Put WebOS on the HTC Supersonic and just try to keep that thing in stock.
- roc 17y ago
  You don't think the media experience pales in comparison to the iPhone? Or the customisability/flexibility pales in comparison to Android?
  - megaman821 17y ago
    The default music playing app is much better on the iPhone. Other than that you can get videos from Youtube and break.com. You can play music in the background with Pandora, Grooveshark, Slacker Radio, or Radio Time. You can upload photos and video to Youtube, Facebook, Flickr. As for a flexibility, look at the WebOS hacking community. WebOS is running on a Linux that isn't very far away from stock (closer than Android for sure). Just last week they got the QT framework running on it.