HP CEO Says Google-Motorola Deal Could Close-Source Android

swandives writes "WebOS could be an important player in the long run as an open-source mobile OS, because Android could become closed source with Google's purchase of Motorola Mobility, Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman said during a speech at the HP Global Partner conference in Las Vegas. It may take up to four years for the complete impact of webOS to be felt, Whitman said. HP has said it would release WebOS — originally developed by Palm for phones and tablets — to the open-source community. The company bought Palm in 2010 but late last year announced it will not make devices that use the software."

Comments

Of course

[damicatz]

HP has no reason to disparage a competitor for potential market gains, no reason at all. Nope.

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't HP have to have an actual product to be viewed as a competitor?

Re:Of course

[GameboyRMH]

Microsoft-esque? I don't think MS would make such a statement. "Google's OS could become closed source like the one we offfer! Wouldn't that suck?"

Re:Of course

[Lumpy]

"As far as I'm concerned, WebOS is still light years ahead of both iOS and Android in terms of UI ease-of-use"

As far as I'm concerned, OS2 Warp is still light years ahead of both Mac and Windows in terms of UI ease-of-use
As far as I'm concerned, beOS is still light years ahead of both Mac and Windows and OS2 Warp in terms of UI ease-of-use

as far as I am concerned, XFCE kicks the crap out of all the above, but what wins is what has the software that people want to use. That means that WebOS ls a distant last place because it has almost NO software to iOS and Android.

HP knew that. They know that WebOS is a lost cause because outside of sending TWO free tablets to every single person that claims they will write software for the platform, they will never get to the popularity of the iPad or the soon to be fantastic (hardware wise and OS and apps wise) Android tablets.

I write for both Android and iOS. I will NOT wrote for WebOS unless I am given a FREE tablet and FREE publishing to their store. Why waste my time with a dead before it started tablet? I'm already making money off of the top two platforms.

that's the problem, good luck attracting developers to make the apps that will make people want to use the platform. HP should have PAID microsoft to write the Office suite for WebOS and gave it away free with the tablets and marketed to the Business crowd. They would have had a chance.

Re:Of course

[Sponge Bath]

This is more Alice in Wonderland than Microsoft FUD: "Our competitors successful open source platform will be come closed source and fail, while our failed closed source platform will become open source and be the savior of the industry!"

Time to give the hookah back to the caterpillar, Meg.

Re:Of course

[ducomputergeek]

The problem with that fantastic android tablet hardware is that it appears to be on a 90 production schedule. I've been writing an app designed for both iOS and Android tablets. We had one client that was more intersted in the android tablets because they could get usb ports and use existing usb cabled barcode scanners.

Well of the three android tablets we bought last fall, only one is still available. We even talked with a couple manufactures in china and they couldn't garuntee the tablets we orders three months from now would be the same as the ones we ordered today. That means if we were to go to market today with android as our lead platform we would have to sink a lot of money into inventory and hope we sold the devices because there is no garuntee that in six months we can find the same tablets. It's also a pain because we don't want to be in the hardware business. We want to sell the app and related support services for the software.

The appeal of the iPad has been, if one breaks our customer can go to walmart or other big box store today and get another one right then and there. Also, in the past several of our customers had a bad experience with another solution that used propitarty hardware. They view the ipad as off the shelf defacto standard stuff.

Except it would be suicide for Google...

[neokushan]

Google doesn't make money from Android OS itself, Google makes money from the sheer volume of Android devices out there. Be it app purchases, targeted ads, search or whatever, the revenue Android brings in comes from everything except the OS. It wouldn't make sense for Google to close source it.

Google is a massive company and if they wanted to make their own phones with their own closed OS, they'd have done it by now.

Close-Source Android

[n122vu]

Can they even do that? In order to close-source it, wouldn't they have to remove the Linux kernel and basically rebuild the OS from scratch to keep from violating the GPL?

Logic

[Spad]

How is there any causal relationship between Google buying Motorola Mobility and close-sourcing Android? How would it in any way benefit Google to close-source Android? Even if they did, why would anyone use webOS as a replacement? Finally, how is HP still going with people like this running it?

Hey!!!

[hymie!]

Hey!!! Everybody!!! Look at me!!! I'm relevant!!! Over here!!! Look at meeeee!!!

Re:The beginnings of Android closed source...

[zero.kalvin]

Google don't own Android, the OPEN HANDSET ALLIANCE does, that's one. Second Android 3.0 is not closed source, you can get the source code if you want, the only thing that happened is that Google delayed the release of code for good(bad) reasons.

The HP Visionaries

[sl4shd0rk]

"hey lets buy a flailing company and then sit on the technology long enough for itnto become uslesss and then sell it all at cost"

I wouldnt trust the HP visionaries to predict the current weather righ now let alone the tech market.

Re:What is he smoking?

[d3ac0n]

The CEO of HP is Meg Whitman. A Woman.

Also, the old CEO, Leo Apotheker, did screw up and cause WebOS to flop. That's part of why he was fired. That and his crazy statements about getting out of the PC market borked up HP stock prices and caused the stock holders to lose BILLIONS in value in a single day. (That'll get anyone fired.)