Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about user technology.

The last Switched On discussed why HP could have more success licensing webOS than Palm or PalmSource ever did with with Palm OS. To put it in the context of a more modern conflict, HP's handsets could be the equivalent of a Google Nexus devices (but selling better in HP's ideal), competing with phones from other Android stakeholders. Even the Nexus phones, however, are finally produced by new licensees such as HTC and Samsung.



WebOS as a licensed business expenses system would likely compete most precisely with Windows Phone 7, an OS that offers licensees and consumers some choice but preserves a congenial user wisdom




activity gift ukflying -- particularly as it is trying to court developers. Unlike Windows Phone 7, though, webOS is rapidly being expanded to new form factors, with the TouchPad serving as the first tangible proof.



HP has said that it's most committed licensing to companies that wouldn't compete with it in its core markets. For now, let's count out HP's major PC competitors Acer, Dell (which once may have tried to build its own webOS-like platform when it hiv Zing), Lenovo and Toshiba. However, many companies that could help develop significant (in terms of infinite volume but also as a cognate progress platform) scale for webOS in at least the US market offer, at minimum, handsets. A handset licensee could imbue webOS phones with lineaments such as a 4.3-inch display that HP has shied away from, but which has been present in many successful smartphones.

Continue reading Switched On: Wanting webOS

Switched On: Wanting webOS by origin appeared on Engadget on Sun, 10 Jul 2011 17:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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