4 ms·

Just a thought. Wouldn't it make more sense for HP to take that cool billion to microsoft for an initiative to further 7 for tablets... OR microsoft to buy palm

Just a thought. Wouldn't it make more sense for HP to take that cool billion to microsoft for an initiative to further 7 for tablets... OR microsoft to buy palm and further the initiative themselves? HPs business is not OS (we'll leave HP-UX out of this).. I really see no point in them controlling their own OS for devices like these, unless they want to open source it eventually or something I'm not seeing.

rbanffy 16y ago
Not a great idea to find development of an OS you don't control and that can (and will) be used by your competitors. By buying Palm, HP gets: - immunity from Apple lawsuits (through MAD) - a decent patent portfolio on the mobile space - a decent OS comparable to Apple's - a reasonable stick with which to coerce Microsoft Not a bad deal, IMHO
- Keyframe 16y ago
  I understand, but here is what they also get: - headache and commitment of OS maintenance and advancement on OS that nobody but them uses - virtually no app eco system Basically what they are getting is bootstrapping an OS onto the market in their own closed loop of hardware+OS which is an epic endeavor IMHO. They don't have (anymore) tablet nor OS nor apps on the market and now they will try to try to do all three at the same time. I was just saying it might have been better to rely on someone whose job is OS rather than allocate resources themselves.
  - glhaynes 16y ago
    Yeah, it sounds like webOS could make a great tablet OS. But I'm not sure about the market reality... apps are so important on these things, and when you've got iPad appealing to the design-centric crowd and Android appealing to the open/hacker-crowd (and no doubt, soon a broader variety of hardware than Apple will ever offer), what place is there for a third OS unless it's leaps and bounds better than one of those two competitors? Considering it in comparison to the PC market: iPad has both the "cool/design/ease-of-use" of the Mac and the large 3rd party app market of Windows; Android has the openness/choice/capability of Linux. Those both seem to have a very obvious niche and I'd think will continue to see much success. So what room is there for a 3rd OS? And it doesn't help any that Microsoft's going to want a big chunk of 3rd place, too... Still, it's nice to see more vendors attempting to sell/take responsibility for "the whole widget".
    - stcredzero 16y ago
      what place is there for a third OS unless it's leaps and bounds better than one of those two competitors? Host webOS inside Android. Then you get both JavaScript and Android apps as 1st class citizens.
    - blasdel 16y ago
      WebOS is a real Linux, it uses vanilla kernels (close to stock linux-omap, the hardware platform is basically a beagleboard), standard drivers, and a mainstream userland with glibc, gstreamer, pulseaudio, etc. Android is none of that. It's a Linux that's been bludgeoned to death by Sidekick developers, and then run through the meat grinder by a bunch of Taiwanese hardware idiots. Everything their code had to touch directly was needlessly reimplemented in boggling ways that are neither useful nor portable. The fucking iPhone is more recognizably Unix than Android is! You get about as much of the "openness/choice/capability" of the Linux kernel on Android as you do with a TiVO.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    > - headache and commitment of OS maintenance and advancement on OS that nobody but them uses - virtually no app eco system You may want to tell Apple about this.

rbanffy 16y ago

Not a great idea to find development of an OS you don't control and that can (and will) be used by your competitors. By buying Palm, HP gets: - immunity from Apple lawsuits (through MAD) - a decent patent portfolio on the mobile space - a decent OS comparable to Apple's - a reasonable stick with which to coerce Microsoft Not a bad deal, IMHO

Keyframe 16y ago
I understand, but here is what they also get: - headache and commitment of OS maintenance and advancement on OS that nobody but them uses - virtually no app eco system Basically what they are getting is bootstrapping an OS onto the market in their own closed loop of hardware+OS which is an epic endeavor IMHO. They don't have (anymore) tablet nor OS nor apps on the market and now they will try to try to do all three at the same time. I was just saying it might have been better to rely on someone whose job is OS rather than allocate resources themselves.
- glhaynes 16y ago
  Yeah, it sounds like webOS could make a great tablet OS. But I'm not sure about the market reality... apps are so important on these things, and when you've got iPad appealing to the design-centric crowd and Android appealing to the open/hacker-crowd (and no doubt, soon a broader variety of hardware than Apple will ever offer), what place is there for a third OS unless it's leaps and bounds better than one of those two competitors? Considering it in comparison to the PC market: iPad has both the "cool/design/ease-of-use" of the Mac and the large 3rd party app market of Windows; Android has the openness/choice/capability of Linux. Those both seem to have a very obvious niche and I'd think will continue to see much success. So what room is there for a 3rd OS? And it doesn't help any that Microsoft's going to want a big chunk of 3rd place, too... Still, it's nice to see more vendors attempting to sell/take responsibility for "the whole widget".
  - stcredzero 16y ago
    what place is there for a third OS unless it's leaps and bounds better than one of those two competitors? Host webOS inside Android. Then you get both JavaScript and Android apps as 1st class citizens.
  - blasdel 16y ago
    WebOS is a real Linux, it uses vanilla kernels (close to stock linux-omap, the hardware platform is basically a beagleboard), standard drivers, and a mainstream userland with glibc, gstreamer, pulseaudio, etc. Android is none of that. It's a Linux that's been bludgeoned to death by Sidekick developers, and then run through the meat grinder by a bunch of Taiwanese hardware idiots. Everything their code had to touch directly was needlessly reimplemented in boggling ways that are neither useful nor portable. The fucking iPhone is more recognizably Unix than Android is! You get about as much of the "openness/choice/capability" of the Linux kernel on Android as you do with a TiVO.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  > - headache and commitment of OS maintenance and advancement on OS that nobody but them uses - virtually no app eco system You may want to tell Apple about this.