Comments on: HP Completes Palm Acquisition

Do they need to be tied together to sink?

Will one rock not sink alone?

Will they sink if placed in cement?

Will they sink in water that's frozen?

Do they sink if attempting in weightless environs?

... you'll be sad when I get my new printer with 4G, AMOLED, and WebOS.

Pat Horne

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->Verizon Moto Droid + Verizon Palm Centro

E-T

Supposedly, they are looking at getting rid of two third party embedded OS'es with this. First is ThreadX that allegedly runs on most of their printers and scanners. Second is they want to eliminate, if not severely compromise Window Mobile and make some good mobile systems. Perhaps we will even see an HP-branded and webOS-based tablet computer.

It does look bright. How long will the Palm logos say on the buildings on Maude Ave?

For example - HP gives Palm the ability to launch a new phone simultaneously on multiple carriers like Samsung is doing with their new Galaxy line of phones. Why? Because HP doesn't need the carrier kickbacks and marketing aid that come with the exclusivity agreements (Palm needed these because they were so cash poor). HP has a huge marketing and sales department that can spend gazillions on advertising campaigns to build awareness - one bad campaign won't sink HP like the way it did Palm with the creep girl ads (though I still hope HP can manage a home run campaign like Motorola/Verizon did with Droid).

The only open questions are longer term - does HP/Palm license webOS for non-core markets? We know Google's Android will be everywhere (phones, tablets, TVs, etc - Google makes money off search - not the devices) but how will HP/Palm compete with that? And, if HP for some reason doesn't end up being successful (by whatever metric they decide to measure that), how long will they continue the no-holds-barred investment in Palm/WebOS before shifting strategies (i.e. they decide mobile is non-core and go back to just being a licensee)?

Anyway, with Apple and Google mostly being consumer oriented, there's a real opportunity for HP in the enterprise markets, especially when it comes to tablets. I figure if they can quickly (within 6-9 mos) come out with a strong tablet, it will help them win share in mobile phones (they'll no doubt have solid phones, they'll find an increasingly saturated market and have difficulty cutting through the chatter). For the other non-mobile devices the lead time is longer - webOS in printers, cameras and instant-on webOS BIOS PCs (if those come to fruition) probably won't come until mid-2011 at the earliest.

Microsoft continues to flail around in the mobile space - allowing Windows Mobile momentum to melt away while investing in the Kin (completely mistargeted product which took way too long to come to market) and killing the Courier shows just how adrift they are. How many OEMs will sign up for Phone 7 once it is finally released (and will consumers even care)? Nokia's two OS strategy (Symbian and Meego) dilutes what should be a stronger presence - though they look to be getting closer to moving forward with Meego and ditching Symbian. And RIMM looks to me like they might be the next Palm - taking a painfully long time to update their OS and increasingly outmatched financially in a game of behemoths (Google, Apple, MS, Nokia, HP, Intel).

It'll be interesting...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8lT1o0sDwI

HP has established relationships with every damned carrier. HP's SMS software is the MIDDLEWARE everyone in the cellphone space uses. This gives webOS an advantage NO OTHER OS can hope for. HP has had a trusted long-term relationship with all those vendors, unlike either Apple or Google. If HP says, "Look, put this webOS middleware on your network and carry our devices, and we'll all clean up like hell" -- carriers will listen and DO.

I also didn't know about these frikkin apps already built-into HP's printers.

And that HP guy in that video has one hell of an impressive resume going there. Plus, he came out of retirement to work at HP. Someone like him could have gone anywhere, but he went to HP. He had to have liked what HP told him they wanted to do.

And I also liked the fact one of the first things HP did was run a contest with all the engineers to build webOS apps. DAHYUM! Talk about everyone getting hands-on experience with it! All those engineers could also look at it and immediately see what heavyweight things would improve webOS.

If Apple and Google have been laughing at Palm, they'd better start paying attention. The sh*t is going to start to getting serious soon.

In connection with completion of the Palm acquisition by Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), some Palm staffers this week were handed their walking papers.

One now-former Palm staffer who got the ax this week tells me that while there were "many others" cut, but that the company would not say exactly how many people lost their jobs as a result of the deal. "Pretty ironic for a company that said it was going to double-down on WebOS," my contact writes.

I'd be content to have Rob Haitani, Jeff Hawkins, the tap counter guy, and Donna Dubinsky come out of retirement/semi-retirement to join the party over any HP people. Throw in CES Dewar, Dmitry Grinberg, Aaron Ardiri, some of the TCPMP crew and Marc Blank alongside some young Linux studs and that'd be pretty much good enough for me.

@ jptx;

That's the best concept I've heard in ages. In fact, it's almost a no-brainer (along with my idea to sell leftover Centros at $99 retail w/ $20 monthly unlimited data service through Virgin Mobile etc). It'd also make sense to have a $200 or $300 wi-fi only version for the budget-minded. it's such a good concept that HP/Palm or Sprint would want to run with it. But what size screen would you like to see? I feel that maybe 1366x768 on 10.6" or so is the sweet spot?

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->Verizon Moto Droid + Verizon Palm Centro

yet...

a few webos people leave, several vp's leave, *and* HP axes a bunch of people.

Sounds like HP is not off to a good start with all of this.

Which is precisely why I DON'T buy everydamnthing everyone else buys. My life ISN'T frikkin hollow and pointless. STFU, Gekko -- which of us two HAS to visit strippers? Not me, baby.

Yeah, now that's what webOS needs today!

BTW, the netbook section at J&R -- the only remaining big non-chain electronics retailer in NYC -- is like a ghost town these days. They carried a very large selection of netbooks. Now, no one is showing up to look at them anymore. That's the iPad doing that.

I'm not convinced although the iPad is on sweet operating device. Smooth as glass OS like my Pre. I can be converted. But, I just don't see enough functional advantage over my $300 1008 EeePC, which is just killer.
Pat Horne

**a few hours AGO.

I blame the heat for that typo.

see you at Coney Island.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVYLchhw_gM

The Droid (original Moto droid) has one of the WORST virtual keyboards ever. I honestly think I could peck words out faster on my old Palm Pilot's onscreen keyboard with the stylus than I can type on landscape mode on my Droid. And don't even get me started on portrait mode virtual keyboard!

I have used an Incredible (as well as an Evo) and I must say that both are leagues better than the Droid's virtual 'board. But after spending a lot of time with the boss' HD2, there's no turning back from a big screen. Going back to the misery of stock Android for a moment: Heck, I have the Skype beta on my Droid and it does better in hunt'n peck mode than the stock Android keyboard, aside from having horrible, horrible lag.

@ Mike;

Kyocera has that very nice thin Android prepaid phone coming soon (presumably to Virgin). Alcatel has that Pre-esque red slider device with the physical keyboard.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->Verizon Moto Droid + Verizon Palm Centro

i did buy an iPhone headset though.

Tech Center Labs
www.talestuff.com
www.iTalentProductions.com

HTC's recent Android devices (Evo, Incredible etc) ship with Flash Lite 4.0 already. Remember, they (HTC) use their own Webkit-based browser over the standard Android browser. They're otherwise pretty similar and by all accounts the Flashite player is buggy and rather limited, but it's something and it's available NOW..