Slashdot Mirror
HP To Put WebOS On PCs In 2012
Stenchwarrior writes "Hewlett-Packard's chief executive officer Leo Apotheker announced that WebOS will be on every PC that HP ships in 2012. The move is intended to attract more developers and push the operating system from mobile devices onto desktops. Apotheker made the announcement during a presentation to HP's staff in India, according to a report by Bloomberg. It's not likely that WebOS will supplant existing operating systems on PCs, but rather would run on top of Windows to be able to launch WebOS apps. HP had previously announced its plans to push WebOS onto PCs last month, but, at the time, the company didn't reveal the scope of its commitment to the operating system. We now know that HP means each and every PC it sells starting in 2012 will have WebOS installed."
...Yet they will not take even consumer friendly Ubuntu seriously. IS the idea of Linux as a consumer friendly OS a dead end?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I am with ya on that, this move is completely beyond comprehension, not only does it seem pointless but if you have dealt much with HP software over the years the last thing you would want from them is more of it.
No matter what a PC comes with, the first thing I do is slash and burn and install whatever I want. There's no way I'm going to put up with all the bloatware and possible malicious software the vendor installed.
This is running on top of Windows, though.
It'd be like driving a Lamborghini on a canoe.
Trolling is a art,
Everyone seems to be coming up with something like this. And I think it's all to encourage you to stay within the owner's ecosystem where they make the rules and skim the profits of everything that comes through.
Apple iStore started it.
Then Steam. GamesForWindowsLive is an obvious ripoff. Apple is offering more and more stuff, Facebook wants to start offering credits or something like that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Credits App Stores, Paypal, etc. it's the wave of the future.
Everyone wants to be the broker through which you do all your stuff. I kinda hope that they all screw off and drop dead. I don't need any more middle men between me and my destination.
Maybe the marketplaces will proliferate to the extent that none of them can become truly mandatory. Or maybe one day you'll choose between the 300 different app markets that do all sorts of shit and you'll have to be careful to shop out the one with the best terms. Or maybe you'll have to join a bunch of them (that product you just bought requires you to join another one, please generate ANOTHER unique username and password!) and you'll have to manage all 300 digital identities.
Perhaps you can see how excited I am.
-- "Oh. This guy again."
I'm also a happy Pre user, and looking forward to the Pre3/Touchpad combination. I'll be happier if WebOS for the desktop will be available for installation on other vendor hardware, as a lot of people like or are locked into Dell, Lenovo, or Toshiba, or build their own.
Those who question the installation of WebOS on HP systems in large part haven't seen what HP is trying to do with it. The concept is closer to consumer cloud computing than anything else that I've seen. While certain services will allow you wide access to one type of data (Box.net for files, webmail for e-mail, etc.), HP is going for total data availability from any device (at least if it's running WebOS). You can have local copies if you wish, but the data will be synchronized across a wide variety of devices. In the future, if it pans out, then I'm sure we'll see WebOS TVs, tables, walls, or refrigerators (or maybe even toasters) to make it so we never have to do much more than turn around to access our data.
Personally, I'd love to have the option of synchronizing it with my choice of hosts, or with my systems at home if I choose to keep things out of someone else's hands. The options are important, and if it means paying a few bucks for it, I'm OK with that.
I don't know if WebOS will be the platform to make this happen the way that it needs to. It may be that Apple will come up with something similar by utilizing their new data center. Google, of course, has been pushing to become the world's data repository. Some other party could come up with something that does it better. Everyone is pushing everyone else, and it makes it an interesting time to watch it all unfold.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.