[Lagspike_exe]

They had a chance to do something great and different with WebOS and they gave up before even trying. Now it is too little to late.

WebOS was doomed from beginning. There was no point fighting Android and iOS, they had no chance whatsoever.

[tarius1210]

Don't you guys know that the cool people show up late to the party.

[marrec]

Man, WebOS was so much better than everything else.

*pours one out*

[amrihua]

WebOS was doomed from beginning. There was no point fighting Android and iOS, they had no chance whatsoever.

HP didn't have to dominate the market, they just needed a profitable %age no matter how low it may be. For years Mac OS was under 5% and it didn't matter, Apple didn't quit. Market share is unimportant, profits are. They had a chance to be something unique and they blew it.

[xbhaskarx]

HP should focus on bringing affordable 3D printing to the mass market.

First they should bring us affordable 2D printing (cartridges)...

[jtb]

HP didn't have to dominate the market, they just needed a profitable %age no matter how low it may be. For years Mac OS was under 5% and it didn't matter, Apple didn't quit. Market share is unimportant, profits are. They had a chance to be something unique and they blew it.

but even with that, Mac OS only had one competitor so it was easier for people to port stuff over because there was only one platform to work with. The current mobile landscape has iOS, android, WP (all here to stay... even if Microsoft lags very far behind the pack, they'll keep throwing money at it), then you've got Blackberry, Symbian, etc. shrinking, but still very real players with more market share than WebOS. Carving out a profitable niche with a solid app base is much more difficult, especially if you're trying to lure developers to your platform.

[Lagspike_exe]

HP didn't have to dominate the market, they just needed a profitable %age no matter how low it may be. For years Mac OS was under 5% and it didn't matter, Apple didn't quit. Market share is unimportant, profits are. They had a chance to be something unique and they blew it.

MacOS was the 2nd OS next to Windows. Android and iOS were already running the show when WebOS appeared. Uninvited. Then there are BB OS and WP7. The market is too crowded already.

[Cookie18]

Y'know what would be great for them? If they bought a smartphone maker, that would give them a real head start...

[Tek]

Guess that means our company phone will change again...

Since I've been there we started with the iPAQ ( funny how everyone forgets about that HP phone lol ) then I had a Palm Pre 2 and now we are using Galaxy S2s which I love.

[BertramCooper]

She sounds psyched about it.

[Mato]

[Cipherr]

WebOS was doomed from beginning. There was no point fighting Android and iOS, they had no chance whatsoever.

Weren't they responsible for the whole 'cards' movement ICS later adopted for its multi tasking pane? Its freaking brilliant and incredibly elegant. If they can contribute even that much with this next foray into smartphones I would be happy overall. The more software engineers and research and development going on in the mobile tech space, the better.

[sonitii]

It sounds like HP may be targeting the emerging markets in developing nations with a cheaper device. I think there would definitely be a market for more affordable devices.

[beat]

Man, WebOS was so much better than everything else. *pours one out*

Granted I never had a WebOS device, but wasn't the point of it that apps were basically HTML5 apps?

And hasn't history borne out that web apps aren't as good as native? FB's own iOS app was essentially just a webapp, and they just replaced it with a real native app instead.

[which1spink]

Weren't they responsible for the whole 'cards' movement ICS later adopted for its multi tasking pane? Its freaking brilliant and incredibly elegant.

Palm's former lead UI designer, Matias Duarte, now works for Google. ICS (and even Honeycomb, to some degree) was his brainchild.

And as an UI designer myself, I can only affirm he's a fucking genius!

[Mudkips]

And Firefox Mobile OS

And Aliyun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyun_OS .
Chinese Android clone that runs real Android apps.

[Brera]

HP should have been players right now.

The made the best Windows PDA in the day and bought Palm...how they have no presence is just silly business!

[tino]

From real life examples I don't think the consumer market is willing to support more than two operation systems/ecosystems. Every OS market I see has two popular OS, be that in the desktop, or the mobile space.

I personally really doubt there is chance for the 3rd OS. So yeah I know MS will keep throwing money at Windows Phone platform. But if the marketshare (not counting tablet) is consistantly lower than 5%, do you still count it a relevant option?

Actually the only 3-OS example I can think of is the current console generation.

[Cipherr]

Palm's former lead UI designer, Matias Duarte, now works for Google. ICS (and even Honeycomb, to some degree) was his brainchild. And as an UI designer myself, I can only affirm he's a fucking genius!

Hahaha.... well.... that makes ..... perfect sense. Probably Googles best hire ever.

[Kilrogg]

"Everyone's doing it, so I guess we should too?"