Will Palm survive this year?

[Pliablemoose]

Palm to dump WebOS for Android?

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/03/rumor-palm-may-ditch-webos-for-android/

That would be a stupid move, better to license WebOS to other manufacturers, some of them would love an alternative to Android...

 

[Slick5150]

Engadget has already debunked the WebOS-->Android move. Resume alternative speculation.

 

[dguy6789]

I see some reasoning in it when thinking about apps. Small individual developers have very limited resources. Developing their app for a bunch of different platforms might be beyond their means or just not seem worth it to them, so they just develop for the biggest or biggest 2-3 platforms. People might avoid buying a WebOS device specifically because of the small number of apps. The Iphone app store has over 100,000 apps, the Android market has over 30,000, and the WebOS store has something like 1,000.

That said, getting the WebOS onto a much larger number of devices would make the OS more enticing for developers to commit to. That does seem like a really good move for Palm. How many manufacturers would pay to license WebOS when they could use Android for free though?

 

[tatteredpotato]

Palm dropped the ball with the Pre... the sad part is they nailed most of the features that would make a killer phone, and then when and built it like they were going to sell it for $5.99 at Toys-R-Us. I've picked one up and played around with it and my impression was it felt way to cheap to be a smartphone. I felt like i could snap the two pieces in half when just sliding it open and closed.