Open Ballot: Who should buy WebOS?
Ahhh, lovely WebOS. It's Linux powered, it looks great, and it boasted fluid multitasking capabilities back when iOS users were still struggling with push notifications. Unfortunately, it hasn't managed to make a big impact in the mobile market, with Palm's smartphone devices and the HP TouchPad failing to get much traction. But it's sad when such great software dies, so many pundits around the net are speculating that a company such as Oracle will buy it up.
We'll be recording our next podcast on Monday, so we want to hear from you: who should buy WebOS? Which company could make the best use of this shiny mobile platform? Would it be safe in Oracle's hands? Or should we forget about it and focus on Tizen instead? Let us know in the comments below, and we'll read out the most intriguing musings in our upcoming episode.
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Your comments
Sell it for parts.
Desintegrated Penguin (not verified) - November 11, 2011 @ 12:49pm
just as I said. sell it for parts, this means no one should have it and everybody should have it since it's not dying, it's already dead.
Release the Source
Richard Mottershead (not verified) - November 11, 2011 @ 1:00pm
I can't see why HP could not release the non-GPL parts of the source under the Apache License, similar to the way that Oracle has done with OpenOffice.
Whilst, some would argue that it's not completely free and open, as the GPL, it will allow talented developers to pile over the code and potentially make updates to keep it alive.
HP or someone else could provide support for the myriad of devices running the OS, and maybe release new devices running it.
Noone
Etd (not verified) - November 11, 2011 @ 2:17pm
Noone should buy it: We have enough fragmentation in Linux with Android. But there was MeeGo and will be Tizen so, who would want another linux project to pop up with completely different apps. Enough is enough.
Amazon or open-source
Rothgar (not verified) - November 11, 2011 @ 2:47pm
I have been a huge webOS fanatic since it was announced in 2009. I have owned a pre+, pre2, Pixi, veer, and 2 touchpads. The intuitive interface of webOS is simply unbeatable. Yes there are bugs and yes some of the hardware was less desireable than other phones on the market, but palm had so much innovation from the very beginning (wireless charging, Enyo, etc).
I still think that if HP would just get behind the platform it could be truly successful. If amazon bought it I'd be scared I never see webOS on another phone. Instead it'd be locked kindle prison without any room to stretch its legs. Open-source what isn't already open would be great but then webOS would succumb to being a distro that no one would ever use. Sure existing devices would get updates but who would make any new hardware? It would instead be a laptop linux os with angry birds.
I think that instead Google should buy it and give up on their fragmented, unsupportable Android OS and give users something they really want. A clean and intuitive interface without skins and guaranteed to get software updates for at least 2 years.
--sent from my TouchPad
Amazon
Mohan (not verified) - November 11, 2011 @ 3:35pm
I love webOS, I still use it everyday on my Pre. I think Amazon would be an excellent candidate for ownership of webOS. Even though they seemed to have poured in a lot of money with Kindle Fire by modifying Android, it would be in their best interest if they controlled everything and not relay on Google.
Amazon
pengwin dienw (not verified) - November 11, 2011 @ 4:42pm
I'm hoping Amazon will buy it. It seems like a much better platform than an old forked version of Android, but its probably just wishful thinking on my part.
I think...
heiowge (not verified) - November 11, 2011 @ 5:02pm
...that Microsoft should buy it. Then they could put it on those lovely Nokia phones they currently put windows phone 7 on instead.
Anyone but Oracle
BobTheLinuxHacker (not verified) - November 11, 2011 @ 6:06pm
Who should buy webOS? Erm, maybe there's been a new announcement that I missed, but I got the impression that the new HP board had backtracked about selling it, and it was "under consideration".
If it IS still for sale, then I'd say "ANYONE BUT ORACLE"!!!! I just can't see Oracle as a friend of open source, and I can't see the anti-Oracle component in HP wearing that. Apart from anything else would Oracle buy something from HP - a company they loathe and detest? Of course not!
My preferred bidders would be Intel (now they seem to pulled away from MeeGo), Amazon or IBM. Anyone fancy buying an "Amazon Phone"? If anyone could do it, then it'd be them.
Apart from anything else - I've tried webOS on a relative's TouchPad, and was quite impressed. It's latest version is easily as good to use as Honeycomb or iOS4.
I think they should sell it to me
Rhakios - November 11, 2011 @ 6:27pm
At £2.00, I couldn't quite afford Comet, but I'll offer £1.75 for WebOS. :-)
you should
THE anonymouse moose (not verified) - November 11, 2011 @ 7:01pm
Tux Radar should buy it I can not be that expensive, no one else wants it
Pulseaudio. Boom.
bananaoomarang - November 11, 2011 @ 8:12pm
Pulseaudio.
Boom.
Wait, ignore that last comment
bananaoomarang - November 11, 2011 @ 8:44pm
That last one was supposed to go in the 'jokes' thread. Please delete (or add an edit button)!
Bad jokes in wrong places aside, I've thought about this a lot, and there doesn't seem to be a good choice.
Reuters are reporting that WebOS is on the 'market' for 'hundreds of millions', with potential buyers including Oracle, IBM, Intel and Amazon. (source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/07/us-hewlettpackard-webos-idUSTRE7A66UM20111107?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews)
From here I can a few viable paths, since all major manufacturers are either WP7 or Android (or both!)
Amazon. Amazon would work well, but there wouldn't be much hope of open-sourcing, and they just put a hell of a lot of work into _forking_ Android for the Fire and deeply integrating it's services. This should stay convenient for them, they have a presumably nice codebase no. Why spend money and resources on WebOS when you have Android for free? The only reason I can see is Palms patent portfolio, I'm told Palm have a metric crap-tonne of patents, and they probably do. If these could be used to protect someone from whatever Microsoft is suing Android OEMs with, it would be incredibly valuable.
Intel. Intel have MeeGo/Tizen and don't seem to want to push that much anymore... They just signed a deal with Google to get Android ported to x86 though, so I think their happy for the time being, but they still need to get some proper mobile processors out, with ARM running rings around them in that respect. If they _owned_ an OS I could see it being valuable for them, but they have MeeGo, and look how that went for them. I wouldn't count on Intel buying, but I wouldn't rule it out.
IBM. I'll be honest, I can't see this happening. If it did, it could be pretty awesome. But hey're not exactly consumer facing any more, I would guess they'd integrate it into their business products, although they of course might go down an open source root.
Oracle. It looks so likely I might cry. I bet their salivating over the patent portfolio, but this would be the worst thing humanity has ever done. It's be better if it just stayed at HP and was put on printers. That's saying something.
Fusion Garage. If this happened I'd laugh so hard. For hose who don't know, Fusion Garage are a mysterious company with seemingly limitless pots of gold, taken from some mysterious angel investors in Asia. The CEO's super passionate but their products have been super sub-par. If they bought WebOS it would be up there with the craziest decisions in the industry. Make it happen. It would make my year.
Overall I can't see it. At the end of the day we had the future in the Palm of our hands, and we crushed it. Pun intended.
WebOS was a web based OS, doing what Windows 8 and Google are dreaming of doing currently, it provided a extremely slick and intuitive natural interface and inspired the same people-product connection as Apple products. Something the industry can learn from. It's sad it never nearly reached its potential, and we have to put up with Android instead (which, let's be honest, isn't a great OS....)
I wrote a post on how I thought HP needed to execute the TouchPad launch a while back.
http://www.awevation.com/2011/06/22/hp-you-have-a-window/
They failed on every front.
WebOS seems cursed, I doubt anybody _wants_ to push it now, it would be far too much work to build an ecosystem. But my vote goes to Amazon I guess... Better than printers.
Huawei
Oh well! (not verified) - November 11, 2011 @ 11:00pm
I've never used WebOS, but if you like it and you'd like to see WebOS continue and become more popular, my guess is that Huawei will become a big, big player in the mobile market - and you should hope they buy it.
go open source
lonley mike missing penguin (not verified) - November 12, 2011 @ 2:01am
great yes / no question! I would say NO like in nobody.
If HP still want to get some market share they should go entirely open source. Maybe it will never exist as WebOS but bits and bytes of it might find new homes in other projects. Being it android, meego, or ubuntus new fridge OS.
And who knows maybe the community is strong enough to carry out an alternative WebOS based ROM for Android handsets. Similar like Linux and openBSD.
Furthermore, don't underestimate the embedded market. Smartphones and tablets are only a tiny fraction of this market. WebOS might be much better suited for home network systems, home automation, home appliances, car PCs, etc.
Trying not to compete with Android and iOS but define a new market of embedded server systems.
WebOS
zingyyellow - November 12, 2011 @ 9:56am
Amazon could buy it, but at the rate the fire is being preordered I don't think they're gonna change the OS on future versions. What about another phone maker Samsung or Sony or maybe another company like Philips that may come with a tablet with a different look. Gonna be difficult for a company to topple Android, so I think it'll end up on some embedded device like in-car or in-flight systems maybe telly or similar media delivery box.
Would be interesting if Red
Spangwiches (not verified) - November 12, 2011 @ 12:04pm
Would be interesting if Red Hat took it on. Not their usual field at all of course (other than it's linux) but they do understand how to do this stuff (linux as a business) right.
Canonical, of course
Stephen Michael Kellat (not verified) - November 12, 2011 @ 7:10pm
WebOS reminds me so much of Unity that it would be an interesting 2D counterpart to Unity perhaps.
Facebook!
Austin Prior (not verified) - November 12, 2011 @ 7:51pm
Facebook will buy it. Did I win? This is about computers and stuff, yeah?
Apple should buy it. Then
jokeyrhyme - November 13, 2011 @ 9:05am
Apple should buy it. Then the one guy there with a conscience can stop worrying about their notification rip-off and actually live with himself. :P
Oracle should buy it. Having a high-profile visible front-end system would allow them to commit their evils in plain sight. They'd still be evil, of course, but at least we'd be able to watch them. This is preferable to being ambushed by their Java and MySQL sneak-attacks. :P
Seriously, though, it would be cool if it were donated to Mozilla. It would give their Boot2Gecko initiative and instant leg-up. Swapping WebKit with Gecko wouldn't be too trivial, but at least they'd have proven interface work already completed.
Google
Lager Monster - November 15, 2011 @ 9:57am
Google should buy it.
For 2 reasons:
1) Incorporate the best features of both Android and WebOS into a truly unbeatable phone OS.
2) Increase Googles patent portfolio to stave off the M$/Apple trolls.
Think, palms hand writting feature on the old pilots. Is that patent included in the deal?
Another vote for Google
Tobi - November 15, 2011 @ 7:07pm
Google could certainly need the UI design guys behind WebOS (even the most Apple loving tech journalists say that WebOS is a very well designed OS) and more patents on the Android side will unfortunately be necessary in the defensive fight against MS and Apple. And as Palm was the first company with a really successful PDA out there, they certainly have tons of patents...
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