HTC Considering Buying Own OS

An anonymous reader writes "HTC Corp chairwoman Cher Wang announced that the company is interested in buying an operating system. From the article: 'After the global PC heavyweight Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) announced on Aug. 18 a plan to spin off its PC business and stop sales of its TouchPad tablet that uses the WebOS operating system, a slew of manufacturers like HTC and Samsung reportedly have been trying to acquire the WebOS platform to expand their mobile market reach. 'We have given it thought and we have discussed it internally, but we will not do it on impulse,' Wang said in an interview with the Economic Observer of China.'"

Comments

Out of their minds?

[Ezel]

So they don't realize that they have their position in the cellphone-market BECAUSE they use Android insted of IN SPITE of it?

Re:Out of their minds?

[gtirloni]

An edge in the mobile space is achieved through: 1) a good design and 2) apps They can differentiate themselves in those 2 areas with Android just fine.

Re:Out of their minds?

[am 2k]

Yes, but you can't measure "good UI" in an Excel diagram, thus that's outside the thought space of CEOs.

Re:Out of their minds?

[slack_justyb]

FTA:

expand their mobile market reach.

Reads as: "So no one else has this option."

The only reason anyone would want to have this, is simply so no one else would have it. I know it sounds pretty crazy but if a company has the rights to WebOS, then who knows what might happen?! In reality, WebOS may just be a yawn and no one really wants it for an actual project, but then again the companies in question don't know that for sure, so why not get a piece of the action while the getting is good? That way if it does become something big they're on the bandwagon, and if it doesn't they got in early while the price was low.

In the end, the whole thing comes down to fear of a dark horse, rising up and stabbing the competition in the back. Really, does anyone think WebOS has that ability to topple HTC and Samsung's Android phones (with at least a 50% or better chance)? Most likely this is just a move to keep others from making a move, which is common in the cell phone market.

Re:Out of their minds?

[neokushan]

HTC has access to the Honeycomb source code, just like many other manufacturers, meaning it's a non-issue for them.
Just because it's not on the AOSP doesn't mean that vendors don't have it.

Unless you're specifically referring to Ice Cream Sandwich, in which case this is no different to ANY other version of Android, whereby a select group got access first, then everyone else. Besides, HTC has done a lot (more than most) to differentiate themselves from other Manufacturers, with Sense.

What I think most people miss is that HTC don't just make Android phone. They also make Windows Phones and (for some reason known only to them) Brew phones. What's the big deal with having another OS they can peddle, something that they can make entirely theirs? Samsung has Bada, yet they're still doing pretty well with Android, so it can be done.

Re:Out of their minds?

[scottbomb]

Exactly. People aren't interested in another OS. The problem with multiple OSs in the smartphone market is the same as it was in the PC market of the 1980 when developers wrote software for Commodore, Apple, MS-DOS, CP/M, Atari, TRS-80, TI, etc. If the developers don't see a big enough market to go out of their way to write for your obscure OS, then forget it - no software for you.

Re:Out of their minds?

[am 2k]

You know, this seems like the standard corporate-bashing, 'you're not an IT-guy like me, you'll never 'get it', knee-jerk response...

Oh, but most IT-guys don't get it either. Computing has become mainstream, and it's hard to give up old thinking constructs (like more features being better unconditionally).

Re:Out of their minds?

[am 2k]

Are you referring to Mojave, where Microsoft proved that Vista is much better than XP? :)

I'm sure those studies help a lot.

Re:Out of their minds?

[Zeek40]

I actually like the Sense interface they made it feels more intuitive than default Android, but it does noticably slow down the phone. I've got an HTC Evo 4G, and I rooted it for free wi-fi tether. I didn't realize how much faster the stock android UI is until I installed CyanogenMod7, probably because the phone as pretty good hardware specs compared to most smart phones. CM7 made the UI seem much more responsive, and apps don't stutter at all like they'd occasionally do with Sense.

Re:Out of their minds?

[am 2k]

If the options menu had a search feature (like Windows 7's Start menu) then it would be easy to find, wouldn't it?

Yes, as long as the name of that option is known (which isn't a given in general. For example, how's the feature called for removing the black bars of a video?), but in my observations, laypeople aren't that good in filtering out nonrelevant information. They see everything at once, get scared, declare that they don't know how to do it not even noticing that search field there and cry for help (or switch to a simpler application if they're a bit above the norm).

In order to use anything (hardware, software, people, whatever), the user has to have a mental model of the behavior. It doesn't have to describe how the object really works, but it has to be good enough to make predictions of the outcome of the interaction the user is doing. If the object behaves differently to the expectation, or demonstrates that it does more than that, people either have to reconstruct an improved mental model (which takes time they don't want to invest, and could potentially fail), or they give up.

Bad plan

[Manip]

Why are they trying to buy a failed OS that nobody uses? I could understand it if it came with some IP of note, but it doesn't. Plus let's be honest it will expand their consumer base by almost nobody that matters - a few geeks who made a poor purchasing decision.

I'm not one to harp on about Open Source and Linux, but in this one case it is a situation where HTC should be investing that cash into their own Linux/Android branch rather than buying WebOS which is worth little or nothing.

Re:Bad plan

[garcia]

Because they don't like Google and its policies? Android is great but that's because it has an app store that goes along with it. People want apps, lots of them but companies don't want Google to come along with the deal.

By rolling their own version of Android it's unlikely they'll be in with the Android app store and it would be just as useless as having WebOS (or any other OS "worth little or nothing").

Re:Bad plan

[afidel]

HTC already has their own Android branch, it's called Sense and while it will run Android apps it's really quite a different user experience from the base OS (IMHO a better one). However I'm not sure how many consumers make a purchase based on the differences between the software platforms. They care about whether the device meets their needs, and then price. Android has basically locked up the smartphone market for people that don't want to pay Apple prices or just don't like iOS for some reason, trying to fight that trend with a fourth tier OS is kind of crazy (even RIM with a much stronger financial base is going to have a hard time fighting the two and will likely lose or adopt Android in the end and I think MS's shareholder are going to revolt over their losses on Windows Phone).

Re:Bad plan

[MrHanky]

People want apps only because of the extra functionality (and entertainment, in the case of games). Android isn't great, it's merely good enough, and what makes it good enough isn't the enormous amount of apps you can download, it's the fact that you usually don't need them due to the excellent Google integration. Android without Google would be fairly shit, for a Linux OS.

Re:that's why i'm going back to iOS

[beerdini]

Any company with a sense of customer service, even a poor one, wouldn't drop support to existing products like that. You'd be more likely to see whatever was already in the production channels come to market depending on how much was invested in them before you'd see the company change gears to make devices with their own OS...as long as they weren't purchasing it just for the IP. They won't just sign a deal and say the next day that they absolutely won't support their existing products.

I'd love to see HTC pick up WebOS, but I'm not going to hold my breath on it.

TRON?

[jc42]

I'd wonder if they've considered the TRON OS. Of course, hardly anyone in the US has ever heard of it, despite its being one of the most-installed OSs in the rest of the world. But the US is no longer an important part of the phone industry, y'know. And 99% of the customers don't know or care what OS the phone is running.

You'd think they'd be attracted to an OS that was designed for small gadgets, and which started life with strong support for all the world's languages, not just English.

Re:TRON?

[TheRaven64]

But the US is no longer an important part of the phone industry, y'know

What do you mean 'no longer?' The US has never been an important part of the phone industry, from the perspective of handset makers. They don't sell phones to customers, they sell them to networks, who demand a low price and will only bundle phones with the really expensive contracts with a 20% APR loan hidden in the details if they don't get a very low price. Then they'll try to rip out all of the best features of the phone, leaving them network-branded devices, with most of the uniqueness gone.

Lots of OSes to pick

[Henriok]

There are several cool zombie like OS:es that is ripe for resurrection: AmigaOS, MorphOS, Plan 9 and Haiku. One could even put an OpenStep foundation on top of any of these or something more conventional OS like Linux or xBSD and tap some similarities with iOS.

Ahh WebOS

[jellomizer]

WebOS is one of those mobile OS's that reminds me of BeOS. The techies love it. But fails to get a strong customer base.

I think it was mostly due with Palms hacking WebOS to in essence Hack into iTunes to gets its media (for iPod Support) causing its main competitor Apple to keep changing their method to block WebOS, from accessing its system without Apples permission.
So Early Adopters would have shaky Music support where it is supported one day then the next it will stop then they will have 2 week later they will have it again then stop. Granted I don't approve of Apple locking down iTunes to only Apple devices, however Palm just ignoring Apples policies just because they don't like them isn't good enough, and ends up hurting their customers more then just saying we don't support iTunes but they these other popular services.
In the mean time while Palm is fighting it gave Android the time to perfect its system and get it out, without all the baggage that Palm has made for itself.

Re:Market / App Store

[mlts]

Nail, head hit. WebOS is a good OS, but so is BlackberryOS. However, one of the biggest reasons that people have moved to Android and iOS is because of the third party apps, mainly games.

What has hamstrung Windows Phone 7 is this exact thing. The OS is solid, the hardware conforms to a decent spec guideline for a snappy UI, and the security model is good. However, without the apps, people will turn their nose up at it and buy a device using a platform that their friends and acquaintances use.

In a way, what we are seeing in the phone industry is what we saw in the computer industry when formats got consolidated. In the past, we had C64, TI-99/4a, Amiga, Apple //, CP/M, Atari ST, Xenix, and so forth. These got consolidated over time to a few mainstream platforms (and it can be argued that all of these got consolidated into one platform -- AJAX and Web based apps) because most consumers care more about what programs they are able to run, than the OS.

They already have one..

[Dynamoo]

They already have one.. sort of. They've got an environment running on BREW called HTC Sense (they use that name for a lot of things). You can find it in the HTC Smart released last year. And what happened to the Smart? It sank without trace.

Although.. I bought an HP TouchPad in the firesale intending to move it to Android from webOS, but actually it's a nice OS (although it has its limits). There's already an application library for it, not huge, but a good start. It would be a shame to see webOS vanish completely..

A Phone and Android is not enough

[ControlsGeek]

A Phone and Android is not enough these days. In order to compete you need a network, an Application store and a stream of income that develops from that. Google sucks up all the added value from Android.

Re:Market / App Store

[bhcompy]

First off, turn in your geek card for using the term "killer-app".

Secondly, OS's come and go. iOS and Android have their day currently, but eventually they will fade like everyone else

Re:This shows how stupid western business have bec

[RogerWilco]

I actually think that IBM does have vision, and made the right move. The thing about IBM is that it does keep reinventing itself, and the PC was just a stage in its evolution.

HP now tries to mimic that, but it has no clue.