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HP's Strange Obsession With WebOS For Printers

Posted by Unknown on from the watch-movies-on-your-laserjet dept.

ryzvonusef writes "VentureBeat's (typically unnamed) sources identifies Intel and Qualcomm as being involved in talks for acquiring the Palm asset portfolio. However, citing sources intimate with HP's negotiations, it reports that the company wants to be able to license webOS back for use in printers; it wants it so much, in fact, that the issue has become 'a crucial part' of discussions. Maybe there's something about webOS and printers that HP knows and the rest of the world doesn't."

5 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. It could be a leverage point by Chrisq · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Looking at the picture of the printer I can imagine that if HP wanted to get back in to tablets they could just have a cheap printer with a detachable control unit...

    1. Re:It could be a leverage point by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is the most rational explanation for HPs behaviour I've heard. Well that and LSD in the water in the board room.

      Surely the poster must be the next HP CEO.

  2. Products in the pipeline? by JStyle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe HP already has printers with WebOS in the pipeline, a lot of them. Losing WebOS licenses at this point could be a major loss for their development group.

  3. Re:We B OS by VIPERsssss · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I remember when an inkjet driver fit on a fucking 3.5 floppy, had pretty much the same print quality, and didn't install a goddamn update service, system tray, and a "helper" app.

    Yes, I am angry about this.

    --
    We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion.
  4. Re:Hah. by pseudonomous · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I would like to disagree with the moderation of your comment, it is *not* funny. It is $&#*ing tragic. There was a problem "every printer needs it's own #!*& driver", there were at least two solutions, postscript and PCL that date back to at least the 1980s. But, unless you've got something fancy enough to be considered a network printer, odds are that "the printer still needs it's own #!*& driver". Postscript printers were not-so-common in the 1980's because it was computationally expensive and microprocessors and RAM were not cheap back in the 1980's, but they *are* cheap now. So, let's recap:
    1. 1) We had a problem
    2. 2) We found a technical solution 30 years ago
    3. 3) We still have the same problem, I have no idea why.