HP: We May Install WebOS onto Every HP PC.

HP Wants WebOS on All of Its PCs

[03/10/2011 04:52 PM]
by Anton Shilov

Chief executive officer of Hewlett Packard said that the company’s plan is to be able to install its webOS operating system that the company got with the acquisition of Palm onto all HP-branded personal computers next year.

Speaking at a press conference in India, Leo Apotheker, the head of HP, said that Starting next year, every one of the PCs shipped by HP will include the ability to run WebOS in addition to Microsoft Corp.’s Windows, reports Bloomberg Businessweek. The company believes that webOS will provide better user experience in many cases than the industry-standard Windows. However, in order to achieve that the firm needs more developers to design a wide range of software applications for webOS.

At present webOS lags behind Apple iOS and Google Android. There are 350 thousand apps for the iOS and 250 thousand apps for Android. Meanwhile, there are only 6 thousand for webOS at present.

“Their Achilles’ heel is software,” said Brian Marshall, an analyst at Gleacher & Co. Hewlett-Packard gets 70% of sales from computers, storage, networking and printers, 27% from providing information-technology services, and 2.2% from software.

The success or failure of HP’s webOS will show whether a hardware company can create a successful operating system that will be able to compete against Google Android or Microsoft Windows. The outcome will also show whether end-users truly need a proprietary operating system on a large amount of devices from HP.

Tags: HP, Palm, webOS, Windows, Android, iOS

Discussion

Comments currently: 3
Discussion started: 03/10/11 06:05:13 PM
Latest comment: 03/11/11 12:59:19 AM

[1-3]

I like the idea very much. This is big move. In reality, a merger would be more suitable, but this is most unlikely.

0 [Posted by: synoptic12 Rating 1

| Date: 03/10/11 06:05:13 PM]

Reply

We want to see that too!
Windows monopoly only hurt the computers, let there be more players in the OS game!

0 [Posted by: nitro912gr Rating 152.12

| Date: 03/10/11 06:08:01 PM]

Reply

now, that a lot of applications are run in browsers, OS doesn't matter as much, as it did before, so switching from one OS to another will be less painful, thanks to this, we will see much more OSes than before
not only that, but HP may - just as Apple - start selling notebooks on which you can install Windows if you want, but supplied with their own OSes, that will be more stable and better suited for hardware they have inside

0 [Posted by: knedle Rating 36.4