HP may license WebOS to Samsung, others

[Deeko]

HP confirms it's in talks about licensing webOS, Samsung tipped as a possibility


By Donald Melanson posted Jun 29th 2011 3:18PM








HP CEO Leo Apotheker has already indicated that he's totally open to licensing webOS to other companies, and he's now confirmed that HP has, in fact, been in talks with a "number of companies" about that possibility. Not surprisingly, he didn't get much more specific than that, and went some way to dampen expectations a bit, saying that "there is no time pressure to do this." According to Bloomberg, however, "three people with knowledge of the discussions" say that Samsung is one of the companies HP has had talks with, and one said that the company is specifically interested in possibly using webOS for its Galaxy Tab tablets. HP's Jon Rubinstein also dished a bit more on the subject to This is my next, noting that "if someone wants to really invest, and potentially help develop webOS, we're interested in talking to them," although he went on to indicate that HP isn't interested in playing second (or third) fiddle with a company primarily focused on Android or Windows Phone -- it'd seemingly have to be webOS first, but not necessarily webOS exclusively.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/29/hp-confirms-its-in-talks-about-licensing-webos-samsung-tipped/

A Galaxy SIII running WebOS next year could be a pretty killer device, but I doubt they'd dump Android for it, and from the sounds of it, WebOS would need to be their primary OS (much like WP7 and Nokia).

 

[bonkers325]

webOS is great but unless you get proper developer support, it will be tough to lure customers who have already paid for iOS and Android apps.

 

[Deeko]

webOS is great but unless you get proper developer support, it will be tough to lure customers who have already paid for iOS and Android apps.

Well, a lot of Android users don't really buy apps...but yes, their app store needs improvement. However, on the flip side, devs won't put time into a platform that doesn't appear to have a strong future, and making a move like this is a good first step.

 

[shortylickens]

They shoulda done that a year ago, and by "license" I mean "free".

 

[Pliablemoose]

They don't charge much for the OS licenses, I'd love to see Samsung build a tablet using Web OS.

I've seen very few HP products outside of printers that I'd buy.

 

[Mopetar]

Manufacturers and carriers won't dump Android for WebOS, but they'll certainly use the threat as leverage against Google in order to maneuver into a more favorable bargaining position.

 

[QueBert]

Manufacturers and carriers won't dump Android for WebOS, but they'll certainly use the threat as leverage against Google in order to maneuver into a more favorable bargaining position.

For Tablets they might, at this point most Android tablets are huge POS's. WebOS is far better suited for a Tablet than Android is. Phandroids keep saying that ICS will change all that, blah blah blah. But today even as poor as the initial review I saw was. I'd take the WebOS tablet over any of the Android offerings.

 

[boomhower]

If they want it to have a chance of succeeding they will. It's not going to live long on the junk Pre's they keep putting out.

 

[DivideBYZero]

For Tablets they might, at this point most Android tablets are huge POS's. WebOS is far better suited for a Tablet than Android is. Phandroids keep saying that ICS will change all that, blah blah blah. But today even as poor as the initial review I saw was. I'd take the WebOS tablet over any of the Android offerings.

Most of the touchPad reviews say it's slow and buggy. At least Android isn't slow.

 

[Slick5150]

Would be a great move.. WebOS is great software but held back by, let's just call it "mediocre" hardware.

 

[Tristicus]

Most of the touchPad reviews say it's slow and buggy. At least Android isn't slow.

That's debatable. Problem with Android is it runs on a slew of different devices with different hardware and features, so you can't just say it "isn't slow" and be right. Some of the stock versions can be unbearably slow at times.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

At least Android isn't slow.

It's interesting because I'm pretty sure that webOS has GPU accelerated UI, while Android just got it in Gingerbread and Honeycomb (natively).

 

[Sheep]

It's interesting because I'm pretty sure that webOS has GPU accelerated UI, while Android just got it in Gingerbread and Honeycomb (natively).

I can't speak to newer versions, but anything before webOS 2.0 most definitely did NOT have GPU acceleration. Laggy checkerboards for everyone!

 

[Deeko]

I can't speak to newer versions, but anything before webOS 2.0 most definitely did NOT have GPU acceleration. Laggy checkerboards for everyone!

In my experience, the OS definitely seemed to be GPU accelerated. Sure, you had some of those checkerboards, but just look at the pinch-to-zoom performance in the browser...it was quite smooth, even on the original Pre. I remember looking at the Pre compared to my G1 at the time, the difference was seriously night and day.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

Laggy checkerboards for everyone!

The checkerboards was due to the lack in hardware capabilities (i.e. Processor and RAM). Mostly RAM.

 

[preslove]

I think one of the major advantages of licensing your OS is that it allows a bunch of different companies, with different development cycles, put out products, which leads to a new product on your platform to be constantly coming out. HP needs to ship out WebOS with anybody who will talk to them.