It seems like ages ago that HP announced that webOS would continue to live on as an open source project, probably because they’ve been awfully quiet on the subject since the big reveal in December.

Well, consider that silence officially broken. HP took to their webOS developer relations blog to tell what faithful users still remain all about how their open-source rollout is going to work, and the whole process has begun with the release of their Enyo application framework.

Enyo should be a familiar name to anyone who has developed a TouchPad application, but the 1.0 release was understandably focused on creating webOS-specific apps. Now that HP isn’t leaning on webOS to grow their stake in the mobile space, they’ve open-sourced Enyo 1.0 to make it easier to migrate existing apps to other platforms.

To that end, HP has also included in today’s release what they’re calling “the core” of the updated Enyo 2 framework, which further expands the number of platforms that Open webOS apps will be able to play nice with. Developers will be able to write an application once, and have it run within Chrome, IE9, and Firefox (not to mention mobile devices) without a hitch.

Today’s releases are just the tip of the iceberg though, as HP plans to pepper the next few months with newly open-sourced components. These releases (see below for the full breakdown) will continue in drips and drabs until September, when HP expects to open-source push to be complete and will rename the project Open webOS 1.0.

I for one am thankful that webOS has been given another lease on life, and I can’t wait to see what all of the mad, brilliant developers out there will do to it. We’ve all seen Android-to-TouchPad ports, but I’d love to see someone try and get webOS up and running on a Galaxy Nexus. It seems that the sky will be soon be the limit for webOS, so long as developers don’t get tired of waiting around.

Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20 and Brian X Chen has a great tick-tock detailing the initial fall – and continuing fall – of webOS. The interviews are quite telling, including a quote from Paul Mercer:

The most important line there is “the technology wasn’t there yet.” Considering a number of other OSes, including, most notably, WinPho 7, are able to do what webOS was supposed to do including social network contact control, status updates, and web-technologies-based UIs, I find this as a bit of a cop out.

The Pre came out in 2009 to much fanfare and was in a face-off against iOS and Android for most of its life cycle. The primary problems outlined in the article – lack of developer support, a speedy, nine-month build time, and general failures to secure key talent – sound like good excuses in retrospect but I think the lesson learned here is that Palm tried to play by start-up rules in an established game. Nine month programming jags to produce shipping code is fine when you’re doing a social network for goat lovers. It’s not so fine when you’re selling phones to a mass market.

I don’t miss webOS. Palm overshot and failed to convince a jaded public that it was worth switching. Palm died because the core audience – the “anything but iPhone crowd” – never received a clear, compelling reason to switch. Then HP bought it and, well, we all know what happened there.

In the end, Palm couldn’t build momentum or a product that worked. There are, oddly enough, still Pre fanboys out there who point to a great webOS open source renaissance but that’s about as likely as the average user caring enough about their Android phone to install Cyanogenmod: there is some impetus there, to be sure, but most people just want to check email, make calls, and buy a phone that will work for, at minimum, two years until the next big thing comes along.

[Image: jocic/Shutterstock]

HP just took to the wire and announced to the tech world that webOS will live on as an open source project. Shortly thereafter, Meg Whitman informed HP employees about the decision. The internal email I obtained, which is included in its entirely after the jump, gives a bit more insight than HP’s public press release including Meg’s feeling that webOS will continue to grow and this is a postive move for HP and webOS alike.

Whitman’s email indicates that the HP leadership team saw webOS could be “a platform that is both open and has a single integrated stack.” By making webOS open source, HP’s short-lived OS neatly fulfills this desire. However, like the company already stated, talk of new hardware is nearly absent from the email besides stating “hardware manufacturers” (read: HP is done) will be able to continue to “contribute” webOS. The TouchPad was likely the last of the HP-branded hardware — unless of course the open source community turns webOS into a magnificent creation worthy of new hardware.

From: CEO – Meg Whitman
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2011 2:03 PM
Subject: webOS to be contributed to the open source community

Meg Whitman
CEO

TO/ All Employees

SUBJECT/ webOS to be contributed to the open source community

Today, we announced that HP will contribute our webOS software to the open source community and support its development going forward. We believe that this is the best way to ensure the benefits of webOS are accessible to the largest possible ecosystem.

Since we announced the discontinuation of our webOS devices last August, the executive team has been working to determine the best path forward for this highly respected software. We looked at all the options in the market today and we see a clear need for a platform that is both open and has a single integrated stack.

webOS is the only platform designed from the ground up to be mobile, cloud-connected, and scalable. By providing webOS to the open source community and other hardware vendors we have the potential to fundamentally change the landscape.

HP engineers, partners, other developers and hardware manufacturers will be able to contribute to the development of webOS. Together, we have an opportunity to make it the foundation of a new generation of devices, applications and services to address the rapidly evolving demands of both consumers and enterprises.

I would like to thank the webOS team for continuing your efforts under very difficult circumstances during these last couple of months. Your dedication is very much appreciated.

This is a very positive move for the development of our people, our software and HP overall.

We strongly believe that the best days for webOS are still ahead.

Best,

Meg

Well, there we have it. After weeks of deliberation, HP CEO Meg Whitman has just announced to all of the company’s employees that HP will make webOS’s underlying code available under an open-source license.

Before I go any further, I’d like to take this chance to applaud HP on making the right decision: they managed to make some lemonade after all.

According to a company-wide email from Whitman, making webOS open source “is the best way to ensure the benefits of webOS are accessible to the largest possible ecosystem.” A new release from the company goes into slightly more detail: HP will help “accelerate the open development of the webOS platform,” and “will be an active participant and investor in the project.” The rest is up to webOS developers, who are now able to pick up where the personal computing giant left off.

While the news will certainly be welcomed by webOS enthusiasts (myself included), let’s not forget that HP sunk over $3 billion dollars into the webOS experiment before ultimately giving it away for free. Still, I’m sure HP has picked up some much-needed brownie points from webOS users whose devices have suddenly been given a new lease on life.

Of course, with that shift toward open source, drastic changes will almost definitely be made to the company’s existing webOS team. AllThingsD reports that no official word has yet been handed down about staff rearrangements, but webOS’s smaller role in the company’s future means less manpower will be devoted to it.

Meanwhile, HP has remained quiet on the hardware front. After former CEO Leo Apotheker give standalone webOS hardware the axe, it was widely rumored that HP would find a home for the wayward operating system on their scores of printers. It’ll be interesting to see if the landscape shifts now that third-party hardware vendors have access to yet another open source OS, but for now we can rest assured that webOS will indeed live on in one form or another.

And hey, now you should feel a bit more comfortable about picking up some of the $99 TouchPads HP is throwing on eBay this Sunday — they should have a bright future after all.

We knew that HP’s gamble on webOS was an expensive one, but thanks to the company’s Q4 and full-year financials, we’re finally getting a feel for just how dearly the webOS experiment cost them. This past year, the company lost a staggering $3.3 billion thanks to their most recent foray into the mobile space.

I know I’m not the first to say this, nor will I be the last, but one word comes to mind: Ouch.

HP’s financial results also reveal that the TouchPad fire sale netted HP $200 million in revenue, though the tablets were sold below cost. It certainly explains why the company seems intent on using their remaining TouchPads to drive sales across their other product lines. It’s perhaps a fitting end for the TouchPads — the HP tablet that didn’t sell was used to support a division of HP’s business they nearly sold.

I was a very big fan of webOS (the Pre was the first phone I ever sat in line for), and to see it lose support so unceremoniously was actually sort of painful. Frankly speaking it was unlikely that webOS would have ever become a major player in the market, but it still embodied a few concepts (cards/multitasking, for one) that deserve to live on. And live on they may, if HP can decide what the next step is.

As Greg pointed out a few months ago, webOS isn’t completely dead yet — rather, it’s stuck in OS limbo while HP decides what to do with it. Earlier reports suggested that HP would sell off webOS to whomever wanted it most, but newly-installed CEO Meg Whitman said it was important to make “the right decision, not the fast decision,” and held off on the sale. Now that we understand how much webOS cost HP, I’m surprised HP didn’t cut webOS free as soon as they could, but the waiting game continues and we’re still left without answers.

So, with the year’s numbers on the books, HP has a decision to make: should they go ahead and sell webOS? Or should they take the “expensive bet” and give webOS another go? Or should they pursue some other unseen option? Meg Whitman said that answers would come within the span of a few weeks, and that time is running out. What’s it going to be, Meg?

The Kindle Fire announcement set the interwebs ablaze as Amazon burst into the tablet scene. But the retailer-turned-CE player might be looking to go a different way in the future. Amazon has been named as Palm’s current top suitor among “a handful of contenders” as HP looks to rid itself from the TouchPad/webOS disaster.

It’s unclear from VentureBeat’s leaks why Amazon is interested in Palm. Ditching Android for webOS after building an ecosystem around Android seems foolish and shortsighted. This move, if it’s really happening, could be more about hardware development and patents than reviving a dead operating system. Sorry, fanboys.

Amazon launched the Kindle Fire earlier this week, which brings nearly all of Amazon’s cloud services into one device. Even Amazon’s massive cloud servers, Amazon EC2, are used in the clever Silk browser and the Amazon Appstore finally has flagship device in the Fire. Amazon rebuilt its Kindle syncing platform, Whispersync, to enable resuming of TV shows and movies purchased or streamed using its Prime Instant Vidoes Android app. The Fire is the compilation of a lot of Amazon’s work — and it’s all built around Android.

Adding a second tablet to Amazon’s offering seems to go against the Kindle brand’s mantra of keeping it simple. The Fire isn’t about Android or specs. It’s a tablet built around the same principles as the iPad. By bringing webOS into the fold, Amazon turns the attention to the platform, capabilities and differences rather than the form and function. A webOS Kindle doesn’t make sense.

Instead, if Amazon is indeed looking to acquire Palm from HP, the company could be looking to acquire a proper hardware design team. Amazon reportedly outsourced the Fire’s development to Quanta, who, as Ryan Block puts it, “helped them shortcut the development process by using the PlayBook as their hardware template.” Amazon is clearly going all-in on tablets and will need the right principles in place for future products. However, Palm, and even HP, have never been known to make killer hardware so even this motive is a bit questionable.

The notion of Amazon buying Palm seems a bit untimely at this point. Amazon is fully vested in the Android ecosystem with a host of apps and services. Plus, the Android-powered Fire is seemingly a hit. The install base of webOS, even after the $99 TouchPad fire sale, isn’t large enough to compensate the upfront cost and effort resurrecting a dead platform. Palm off-loaded most pre-webOS patents before HP acquired the company in 2010 so Amazon would only be purchasing whatever patents were left over or granted within the last few years.

Steve Ballmer proudly proclaimed that Android isn’t free and his company is constantly signing new Android licensing agreements. In fact Microsoft reportedly makes more money from Android than its own Windows Phone 7. Amazon’s only play, and this is a stretch given the company’s Android investment, would be to buy webOS upfront to avoid any potential deals with Microsoft down the road. Some companies are fighting Microsoft’s patents but others, including Samsung, HTC and Acer, have already signed on the dotted line.

From this vantage point outside of Amazon’s boardrooms, it doesn’t seem like Amazon needs Palm or webOS. The company did a fine job retooling Android into a consumer-friendly offering and is the only company outside of Apple to supplement hardware with a rich set of services and media, properly setting up the Fire for success. But if the price is right and Amazon foresees a legal battle with Microsoft, it’s completely plausible Amazon will be the next owner of the company that first innovated and advanced touchscreen tablets.

Regardless of your thoughts on what OS should be used on HP’s TouchPad, work on getting a fully-featured version of Android up and running continues unabated.

There’s been a lot of progress in the past few weeks, but a group of devs revealed today that one crucial piece of the puzzle has just been popped into place: the touch screen finally works!

In addition to getting a TouchPad going on Android 2.3.5, a video released by Team TouchDroid earlier today shows that their new multitouch drivers seem to work without a hitch. The TouchPad can detect up to ten input points simultaneously, which is utter overkill for most applications, but it’s heartening to see nonetheless.

With this, HP’s FrankenPad is one step closer to being a reality. It’s not clear whether or not Team TouchDroid’s experimental TouchPad has anything else going for it, like working WiFi or audio, but it’s certainly within the realm of possibility. These are, after all, the guys who managed to get a TouchPad to successfully dual boot into both Android and WebOS.

Considering the collective amount of time poured into this project, it’s starting to look like a feature-complete Android TouchPad is going to materialize sooner rather than later. It could happen just in the nick of time, too: with HP possibly churning out a farewell production run, a user-friendly port process (which is required to claim Hacknmod’s bounty) could give clamoring consumers yet another reason to mob their local retailers.

You’re excused if you didn’t notice a pair of memos leaked to PreCentral this weekend. It was a holiday and, more important, neither of them particularly matter.

They involved HP’s WebOS initiative and they state, in short, that the hardware part of the team is hitting the bricks while the software group will remain ensconced close to HP’s putrescent heart. Why? Because HP wanted some leverage against the coming juggernaut that is Windows 8 and, more important, HP needs a small and light platform for future enterprise devices that doesn’t cost them a few dollars per seat in royalties. I doubt seriously that that’s what Mark Hurd wanted before he screwed up but that’s what we got: a neutered platform that may or may not exist after the next shareholder’s meeting.

Here are some pertinent paragraphs:

SHANE ROBISON
EVP, Chief Strategy and Technology Officer
Office of Strategy and Technology
TO/ OST Employees
SUBJECT/ Organizational Announcement: webOS Teams to Join OS&T

Two weeks ago we announced the transformation of HP for the future. As part of that change we made a very tough decision to exit the webOS hardware device business. At the same time we recognized the value inherent in the webOS software platform. Not only because of its elegant, intuitive interface, but because of our strategic focus on cloud, connectivity, services and software, and printing.

I’m pleased that the executive team has decided that the webOS software teams will be best served joining the Office of Strategy and Technology while we investigate how to leverage the webOS platform and its ecosystem. This move also supports the teams’ continued efforts with over-the-air updates and the application catalog.

First, note the “strategic focus:” cloud, connectivity, services and software, and printing. This is one of the first times we’ve been able to see where we’re really headed here. HP seems to want to be something like Sun used to be – a full-service provider of infrastructure and business systems for a select clientele with, and this is important, their own intellectual property and OS.

Will this OS ever show up in a consumer product ever again? Probably not in any way we’re thinking. WebOS is more than just a bunch of cards on a screen but, given the Linux underpinnings, it seems like a heck of a price to pay for what amounts to an open source kernel. The Office of Strategy and Technology is HP’s “skunkworks” and bizdev team and, presumably, this gives them some other biz to dev. They can point to it and say “Sure, we can do a cheap point of sale system and sure we can build some field devices for your insurance adjusters.” WebOS an arrow in their quiver whereas it used to be the bow itself.

For my money, I’d avoid buying HP hardware right now. A blogger buddy of mine turned down a review of one of their latest laptops because it’s unclear whether anything, from the simplest PC to that $99 Touchpad will ever be supported again. It’s hard to take HP seriously as a consumer play anymore and it’s clear they won’t keep WebOS hardware and software together just for the sake of us, the consumers.

[Image:Gladskikh Tatiana/Shutterstock]

The future of webOS is a little less uncertain now that Samsung’s CEO, Choi Gee Sung, grabbed rumors of buying HP’s webOS business by the cuff, laughed in its face and then coldly stabbed the rumor in the heart.

Choi, in response to a report’s question about the recent analyst report, stated, “It’s not right that acquiring an operating system is becoming a fashion,” and that Samsung would “never” pursue such a deal.

After HP announced it was getting out of the webOS hardware game, several analyst released reports indicating that several key players were interested in picking up the fallen OS. These reports put Samsung as the main buyer, but that’s clearly not the case. Besides, while HP killed its webOS hardware division, the company isn’t abandoning software development — yet. In fact if HP spins off its PC business, this newly created company could revive the TouchPad along with other webOS hardware devices.

Samsung is instead focusing on building out its Bada OS, which many of our commenters pointed out in our original post on the subject. The company just rolled out three new Bada handsets this week, including one with NFC capability. CEO Choi essentially reaffirmed that Android and Bada is Samsung’s future, not buying a second-hand OS.

But with Samsung out of the picture, if HP was looking to off-load webOS, there are not many companies left to run with Palm’s fallen banner. HTC is firmly entrenched with Android, RIM is developing its next generation of BlackBerry smartphones around the QNX platform, Motorola will soon be owned by Google, and Nokia has lucrative deal with Microsoft. Who’s left? Maybe Tiger Electronics will buy webOS and remake the Game.com portable. I’d buy it.

When HP decided to kill off webOS, most people were more concerned with who would snatch up the PC business that went tumbling down the trash chute alongside it. A few options were thrown out, but most bets were placed on Samsung, who’s reportedly been looking to outsource some notebook orders. Little did we know, Samsung may be interested in grabbing webOS, too.

DigiTimes’ sources report that Samsung may very well be considering the purchase of webOS to better compete against Apple and other Android phone makers. With Google’s proposed acquisition of Motorola, the game has changed significantly.

IP wars have become a bit of trend lately within the mobile industry, and no one is completely safe. However, Android now has a much better position thanks to Motorola’s massive patent trove. HP made a similar move last year with its $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm and its patent portfolio. If Samsung really does end up buying webOS, it may buy itself some desperately needed protection, as well. Which would be quite the boost since the South Korea-based company has been under a full-scale attack from Apple for the past four months. Plus, a webOS acquisition may give Samsung an edge competitively, as well.

Though Google promises to leave Android “open,” Motorola will undoubtedly have the upper hand in terms of Android devices. That said, many Android partners are likely feeling a bit frazzled, and may be looking for their own way to comfortably differentiate. Android’s certainly a success story compared to webOS, but it’s also up for grabs and Motorola will henceforth get first dibs. That’s rather uncomfortable to just about anyone but Motorola.

Apple has iOS. HTC has its massive supply chain. Nokia will have Windows Phone 7 Mango. And Motorola will, of course, have Android. That leaves Samsung, who is a notably strong competitor among these big five device makers, without something special to set it apart.

While webOS hasn’t been a shining star among mobile platforms, that’s not to say that it’s a bad operating system. Quite the opposite actually. webOS partners the beauty and simplicity of iOS with the multi-tasking of Android, but just doesn’t have enough apps to walk the walk. With a little tweaking and some app support, webOS might just be what Samsung needs. Especially if the South Korea-based company is looking to free itself from the litigation-inducing Android.

In other news, HP’s ex-VP of Marketing for the Personal Systems Group has reportedly been recruited by Samsung to take over PC sales, adding weight to rumors that Samsung is interested in HP’s soon-to-be spun off PC business. Samsung has denied, rather vehemently, any intention of picking up HP’s PC business. We agree it wouldn’t be the best fit, since HP’s lower-margin PC business doesn’t really jive with Samsung’s high-margin panel and DRAM businesses.

Here’s Samsung’s statement on the matter:

To put to rest any speculation on this issue, I would like to definitively state that Samsung Electronics will not acquire Hewlett-Packard’s PC Business. Hewlett-Packard is the global leader in the PC business with sales of 40 million units last year, while Samsung is an emerging player in the category and sold about 10 million units in 2010. Based on the significant disparity in scale with Samsung’s own PC business and the complete lack of synergies, it would be both infeasible and imprudent to even consider such an acquisition.

On the heels of the HP’s first and likely last webOS fire sale, word has come from across the pond thatthey’re also deeply discounting the cost of the newly-launched Pre 3 smartphone in most European markets.

While it was originally available for the princely sum of £299 in the U.K. and €349 in France (both around $500), HP’s price evisceration brings the cost down to a remarkably reasonable $75 sans contract. Germany won’t be benefiting from price cuts because all the units have already been sold, believe it or not.

Phenomenal deal though it may be, it comes with a bit of bad news for domestic webOS fans. HP had hopes for controlling the webOS ecosystem from end to end, and without the TouchPad, it would seem they don’t see the need to launch the Pre 3 in the United States. It’s a shame, really: the Pre3 was HP’s last chance at relevance in the smartphone market, and more than a few webOS diehards were waiting more or less patiently for it.

If you’ve got money in your pocket and a yearning for webOS in your heart, feel free to import it when it goes on sale “shortly.” Be warned though, in spite of the Pre 3′s above-average specs, expect some spottiness when it comes to coverage. T-Mobile users will be relegated to EDGE speed, and AT&T will have partial 3G coverage at best.

[via PCMag]

In the aftermath of HP’s decision to axe all WebOS products, the question for many a developer is “what’s next?” While I’m sure a few WebOS diehards will continue to work on the platform (and hopefully create some great new apps for all of the bargain bin TouchPads out there), Microsoft has opened their arms to these disenfranchised developers.

Brandon Watson, Microsoft’s Senior Director of Windows Phone 7 development, tweeted an offer to published WebOS developers this past Friday: Microsoft will give them whatever they need to be successful, from free phones to development tools and training.

A bold move by Watson, and one that seems to have paid off already: he received over 500 emails from interested devs in under 24 hours, and Watson was understandably “floored” by the response. This isn’t the first time Watson has gone out on a limb to endear himself to the developer crowd: in the past he shared his personal cell number on Twitter to field questions about the development process.

Warm welcomes aside, former WebOS devs may struggle with the transition. Many WebOS apps were written in HTML and JavaScript, while getting the most mileage out of Windows Phone 7 requires familiarity with C# and the .NET framework. Microsoft’s commitment to making resources available to new WinPho devs may be just what they need to get accustomed to the waters.

With a generous offer like this, Microsoft seems to realize that forging strong developer relations is critical to the success of their mobile platform. The Windows Marketplace’s app count is rapidly approaching 30,000, and Brandon’s welcoming stance on developer relations could help Redmond bolster their numbers even further. Microsoft’s mobile OS rivals have app counts in the hundreds of thousands, and while there’s certainly something to be said for quality over quantity, big app store numbers are a quick (if short-sighted) way to measure platform health.

Picking up traction among former WebOS devs is only the tip of the iceberg for Microsoft’s mobile dev efforts. Their next big focus? Watson says working with students will be “huge” for Microsoft this year.

As I write this, I’m sitting in a cafe. Around me, there are five people on laptops — four of them are MacBooks. Four other people are using tablets — all four are iPads. Welcome to the Post-PC world.

That phrase was one of the first things that jumped to my mind today when I heard the news that HP was not only killing off their TouchPad and Pre webOS-based products, but also trying to spin-off their PC business. The largest PC business in the world, mind you.

And HP’s statements during their earnings call today only further reaffirmed the idea of the Post-PC world.

“Consumers are changing the use of their PC,” HP CEO Leo Apotheker said. “The tablet effect is real and sales of the TouchPad are not meeting our expectations. The velocity of change in the personal device marketplace continues to increase as the competitive landscape is growing increasingly more complex especially around the personal computing arena,” he continued. He then repeated, “the tablet effect is real”.

But wait, then why is he exiting the tablet space after only a matter of weeks? Because when Apotheker says “the tablet effect”, he really means “the iPad effect”.

Put another way, “Apple, you win.”

And not just in the tablet space. Again, the largest PC-maker in the world is exiting the space. Think about how crazy that is for a second. It sounds like a completely irrational panic move. But maybe it’s not.

After all, while HP may be the worldwide leader in PC sales with massive revenues, their actual profit from those sales has already been far surpassed by Apple. Further, while overall PC growth continues to contract, Apple’s Mac sales continue to grow and have outpaced the rest of the PC industry for 21 consecutive quarters. That’s over five consecutive years. That’s certainly another way to interpret ”Post-PC world”.

The writing is on the wall. HP is perhaps reading it a bit early, but they may well be reading it clearly.

Let’s look back at what Steve Jobs said last March when unveiling the iPad 2:

I’ve said this before, but thought it was worth repeating: It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough. That it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing.

And nowhere is that more true than in these post-PC devices.

And a lot of folks in this tablet market are rushing in and they’re looking at this as the next PC. The hardware and the software are done by different companies. And they’re talking about speeds and feeds just like they did with PCs.

And our experience and every bone in our body says that that is not the right approach to this. That these are post-PC devices that need to be even easier to use than a PC. That need to be even more intuitive than a PC. And where the software and the hardware and the applications need to intertwine in an even more seamless way than they do on a PC.

And we think we’re on the right track with this. We think we have the right architecture not just in silicon, but in the organization to build these kinds of products.

And so I think we stand a pretty good chance of being pretty competitive in this market. And I hope that what you’ve seen today gives you a good feel for that.

What’s perhaps most noteworthy about HP’s move today is that they, more so than any other company attacking the tablet space, seemed to have a grasp of what Jobs was talking about — undoubtedly thanks to Jon Rubinstein, the longtime Apple general leading webOS. The Post-PC device is about the combination of hardware and software all built and integrated by one company. Google doesn’t get that. RIM can’t execute. But with the Palm/webOS purchase, it seemed that HP had both the vision and resources to possibly compete with Apple.

In fact, a year ago, that’s exactly what we had heard the plan was. The subsequent talk about webOS integration across their entire product line as well as the unveiling of the TouchPad and a new Pre seemed to reaffirm this. But something funny happened on the way to the battle with Apple. Amid scandal, then-HP CEO Mark Hurd was forced to resign.

This happened just three months after HP acquired Palm for $1.2 billion. At the time of the deal, HP told us very clearly: “our intent is to double down on webOS“. Again, while they wouldn’t explicitly admit it at the time, the plan was to compete with Apple.

But with Hurd out, HP turned to Apotheker, the man who previously ran SAP. He had been with the enterprise company for 20 years. This whole “HP as Apple” plan must have sounded like Latin to him.

Since the wheels of this plan were already in motion when he came on board, Apotheker stuck to it. But while he watched for any sign of shakiness, he scooped up some data companies like Vertica. It was probably clear to those inside HP what was going on. Last month, Rubinstein switched roles, to be an executive at HP instead of the guy in charge of webOS.

When the TouchPad launched, and subsequently floundered out of the gate, Apotheker had what he needed. He landed Autonomy and it was set. HP wasn’t going to be the next Apple. They were going to be the next IBM.

Not IBM, the PC juggernaut, mind you — IBM the company that cut loose the PC hardware division and focused on data and enterprise. That’s what so jarring about today’s news: HP just did a full stop and then a 180 before our very eyes. Apple and IBM both resurrected themselves in recent years, but each did it in opposite ways. The Apple plan didn’t work for HP, Apotheker decided. He now clearly believes the IBM plan will.

During today’s earnings call, Apotheker also cited the threat their “business critical services” were facing from Oracle. That’s interesting since Hurd landed at Oracle as a co-President. The two companies hate one another. In choosing the IBM resurrection model over the Apple one, Apotheker has also better aligned his company for a full-on battle with Oracle.

So where does all of this leave webOS? The TouchPad is dead. The Pre sleeps with the fishes. HP seems to be open to all options including licensing out webOS for others to use. But the simplest solution will probably end up being the one they go with: a sale of webOS to some other entity that can actually use it. HP VP Richard Kerris made this option pretty clear in a tweet today.

HTC? Samsung? Facebook? Google?! One thing to consider: Jon Rubinstein sits on Amazon’s board…

Something else to consider: when HP bought Palm for $1.2 billion last year, the world was a different place. These days, companies are paying $4.5 billion for a group of patents. Google is paying $12.5 billion for Motorola, a large portion is which is also for patents. Along with Palm and webOS, HP got Palm’s 1,500+ patents last year, as they emphasized to us at the time of the sale.

If those patents are as important in the mobile space as some believe, they alone could be worth more than the $1.2 billion Palm sale price now. If HP can flip those for north of that price, the whole acquisition won’t look like nearly as much of a disaster as it does right now.

But the big picture item of today remains what HP is no longer doing: making Post-PC devices or even PCs themselves. In less than the span of a year, the biggest PC maker in the world realized not only that they couldn’t be Apple, but that they couldn’t even compete with Apple. And they admitted it. And called the fight. It was a first-round T.K.O.

The question is: does this make HP look foolish, cowardly, or smart? The answer today may be different from the one tomorrow.

This morning, HP admitted failure.

After spending $1.2 billion to acquire Palm, they announced that they were killing off the development of all smartphones and tablets running Palm’s webOS platform — including the just launched TouchPad. Having survived for just 49 days before its death, it’s tragic that TouchPad lived just one day longer than the oft-mocked Microsoft Kin.

webOS itself, as a platform, isn’t entirely dead. HP says they’ll “continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS”, which is really just a fancy way of saying “Yeah, we’re still not entirely sure what the hell we’re going to do with this thing.”

There’s a way out here, HP — and it’s all thanks to Google’s acquisition of Motorola.

You see, Google’s surprise $12.5 billion buy-out of Motorola has undoubtedly left Android’s other, non-Motorola partners (Samsung, HTC, LG, etc.) a bit… shaken up. In the blink of an eye, Google went from having what was essentially 0% of the hardware marketshare for their own operating system up to a domineering 30%. Out of nowhere, Google went from being the nice guy who builds all the software for free to something resembling a direct competitor. Google insists that Motorola will operate as a separate entity — but at the very least, they’ll be able to sneakily leverage Motorola to influence Android’s hardware ecosystem as a whole.

But where else are Android’s other partners to turn? Windows Phone 7? Great! Lets keep throwing licensing money at Microsoft. They only completely screwed up by sticking with Windows Mobile 6.5 for far too long, launched Windows Phone 7 way too late in the game whilst simultaneously way too early in its own development, inexplicably tried (and failed) to launch the Kin platform at the same time, and have been dickishly throwing a wrench in the Mobile world’s gears by demanding patent licensing money from anyone who finds any success with Android.

Here’s your move, HP: Fill the gap that Google has just left open.

• 1) Open webOS:

  Share webOS’ source code. Bits of webOS are already available under a GPL license, but it’s time to open the rest as much as possible. Perhaps not with everyone — at least not at first, as suddenly sharing a mountain of once-closed source would be a great way to totally bone all of the existing, unlikely-to-be-updated webOS devices currently floating around out there

• 2) Give It Away. For free. But only to those willing to help make it better:

  With Android’s popularity and free-except-for-patent-licensing price tag and Windows Phone 7 floating around as an alternative, webOS licenses would be a rather hard sell. That’s why HP needs to just give it away — but only to those willing to improve it. webOS is, in many ways, kind of amazing. It’s ridiculously user-friendly, the notifications/alerts system is top notch, and it’s undeniably one of the most beautiful operating systems ever created… but it has its faults. Among other things, it doesn’t seem to be terribly efficient; even Palm could never seem to make a device on which webOS ran better than a 4-year old with bricks tied to his feet. Furthermore, Palm just could never allot the resources to properly build out webOS for third-party development; it lacks much in the pre-provided functionality front (read: APIs), and that which is there could really do with better documentation.

  And that’s where the trade comes in. Willing to make substantial improvements to webOS? You get a webOS! And you get a webOS! And you get a webOS! Not willing (or don’t have the man-power) to commit to improvements? No sweat — you can still license webOS on the cheap.

  The definition of “substantial improvements” as well as the definition of “cheap” would have to vary based on company size/revenue, but anything is better than HP trying to tackle webOS alone. Palm’s best engineers took off when the buyout went down, and HP has never proven themselves capable at making software.

• 3) Promise to never set foot in the smartphone/tablet arena again:

  This part is key. Be the hands-off, no-competition software provider that Google has decided they don’t want to be anymore. Throw webOS into printers, cars, toasters, whatever, but just let the guys who know what they’re doing in mobile do their thing.

• 4) Form a foundation to guide the overall product:

  More cooks in the kitchen can just make things worse — and that’s why there needs to be a foundation of sorts (separate from HP) formed amongst the largest contributors to act as a guiding hand for the product’s future. Major contributors get to discuss and steer the future of the product. And if one wants to do build something into the project that the majority veto? No problem — they’ll just have to build it into their own branch. Think of it sort of like Nokia (et al.)’s Symbian foundation, minus the suck.

Will it earn HP back the $1.2 billion they spent on Palm? Nope! But they still have Palm’s patent armory to show for that. Will it score webOS the throne as the #1 or #2 platform in the mobile world? Nope! iOS and Android have that locked down for the next few years , and there’s very little that could change that — but it does make it a viable contender against WP7 for that coveted bronze medal. It also makes the platform a whole lot more viable to third-party developers, if only because it would boost the number of purchased webOS devices above.. like, twelve.

HP ends up with a better webOS, and they avoid looking like they’ve completely wrecked the platform. Partners get a platform — and one with quite a lot of potential — in exchange for allotting manpower they’d already have to allot if they were to explore it in the first place, and they get to help steer its future to boot. Developers get a third platform worth developing for. (Oh, and, in some sense, it makes a licensed webOS more defensible against patent attacks, because of all the major players that had an official hand in its development.)

It’s not a resounding victory, but it’s probably HP’s best move at this point.

HP stated from the start that it planned on putting webOS in more than just smartphones and tablets. It foresaw a time when webOS would run printers, netbooks, and the world! Well, the time has come. HP is looking to grow the webOS base and expand into the world of major appliances and automotive.

HP invested $1.2 billion into Palm last year and from an outsider’s standpoint, it’s hard to view that as a wise investment even when considering the 1,500 patents that were part of the deal. The chief product, the webOS TouchPad, is floundering in the marketplace. Spotting a webOS smartphones in the wild is akin to seeing MG using a Xoom. WebOS is a fine operating system, but consumers just haven’t latched on for various reasons. HP is now looking outside the traditional CE realm for help.

Part of the OS’s downfall is that the products do not have any dev or 3rd party support. Smartphones must have a solid set of native apps, which webOS has, but it then must have an even more robust ecosystem of 3rd party apps. That’s what makes iOS so popular: Apple handles the mundane tasks normally associated with a phone while it outsources all the fun and innovative stuff to App Store devs. Without this sort of support, backed with word-of-mouth marketing, an awesome OS such as webOS doesn’t have a chance.

And so HP is looking to put webOS in unconventional products. WSJ states it’s looking to the automotive and appliance sectors for a bit help. The thought, which is smart, is to licence their webOS system to companies without their own touch interface. The hope, which is wrong, that one day your washing machine, stove, or even car infotainment system will run on webOS. Of course Android is there, lurking in the corner, but recent patent litigation and licensing battles makes it look like the dirty alternative.

Unfortunately for HP, as the WSJ lays out, the appliance world won’t likely adopt a touchscreen interface. Washing machines and such have a lot longer life cycle than a smartphone. What’s hot today, won’t be hot in ten years, let alone five. Appliances are built for reliability, not apps.

HP might have a little more luck in the automotive sector. Microsoft is currently a big player with Microsoft Auto the backbone for many automotive systems like Ford Sync. In-car infotainment systems are ripe for disruption. Only a few are actually worth their cost.

This is the right path for HP and webOS, though. The company needs to grow the webOS brand and exploring other spaces might be a rough, but a smart course. You can bet that HP is not going to let the $1 billion investment die without a fight. The TouchPad is just the beginning. WebOS is here to stay — even if no one is buying the products.

I’d been hoping I wouldn’t have to say this a second time, but here we go again: WebOS is reaching a critical failure point and I doubt the technology will make it through the next two years. Why? Because WebOS just can’t grab the mindshare it needs to flourish.

According to Woot, the deal site sold 612 TouchPads during its impressive $100-off sale. During a similar sale in July, the Motorola Xoom, sold2,288. This, in microcosm, is where the TouchPad and WebOS is headed.

Before you argue that this sample size is far too small for a full assessment, think about the current price drops – over $100 in a few months – and also consider the last time you saw a TouchPad in the wild? The numbers may be skimpy but they’re all we have so far.

This sudden decline in HP TouchPad pricing isn’t unusual. Given that HP is now in charge of this product, it’s obvious that the pricing, discounts, and giveaways are part of HP’s sales plan and, thanks to HP’s extensive experience in PC sales, they’re attempting to clear the channel for upgraded devices.

While this pricing reduction is obviously part of HP’s traditional M.O. – you don’t sell millions of desktops and laptops by selling at full price all the time – I think this M.O. coupled with the general lack of consumer interest is what will sink the TouchPad and the Pre, leaving them to flounder and fail like so many devices before them.

Consider, for example, the iPaq. Originally hailed as a solid competitor to the original Palm Pilot, Compaq sold itself to HP in 2002 and slowly sputtered out as HP gave less and less attention to these devices. HP attempted – and failed – to sell the the PDA concept to newly-minted smartphone consumers and even when the iPaq line began incorporating smartphone features it was too late: the world had moved on.

Here’s the bottom line: HP is where good ideas go to die. The company isn’t set up to think like a scrappy start-up. WebOS will be rolled into laptops, the WebOS tablet product will be overtaken by Windows 8 tablets, and the long, twisted tale of Palm will end with a whimper. I don’t want this to come to pass. I love the TouchPad and the Pre 3 is a good phone. But there is just no room for a third (or fourth (or fifth)) player in the smartphone market right now with Android and iOS battling it out and Windows Phone creeping up behind. HP can’t pivot out of this and, in the end, they’ll pull the plug. Maybe not this year, maybe not this CES, but by 2013 we’ll be writing WebOS’ obituary.

Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, but probably not. WebOS’ time has passed and we’re just watching the funeral.

[Sort of via SplatF but seriously go read Dan Fromer's new thing]

Remember when I said I thought HP was telegraphing its sales with the TouchPad pricing? And how I said the device is $100 off this weekend? Well either HP is not selling any TouchPads at all ever or they’re on some Quixotic race to the bottom in relation to every other tablet out there. You see, the TouchPad is $379 on Woot this morning.

I love Woot. Best shopping site ever. But Woot (generally) is where gadgets go to die. It’s where you can get a $99 smartphone that the rest of the world didn’t want or a failed manufacturing experiment that no one wanted to buy. It’s not always that way (Wine.Woot, for example, is just the opposite of what I described: a finely curated, clever site for great wine), but it’s often that way.

That said, clearly Woot has some pull and for HP to put their gear on there is a big deal. But I worry that this move will induce a slow and steady erosion of WebOS sales figures. Leave it to HP to lead us all into another netbook rathole, cheapening the mobile computing experience until it collapses under it’s failure to add value.

via TopolskyCorp

We didn’t exactly heart the TouchPad. We didn’t hate it, either. We even said that “WebOS and the Palm TouchPad are nearly perfect, an excellent amalgamation of everything that was ever right about Palm.” Granted, perfection in this industry lasts about as long as a battery cycle, and we had plenty to gripe about, but as far as the TouchPad goes, we have hope. But day-one reviews haven’t been as understanding as we were, which has prompted HP’s webOS boss Jon Rubinstein to blast out an internal letter of support to both the TouchPad engineers and the webOS 3.0 development team encouraging them to keep up the work and continue believing in the product.

In the email recovered/leaked by PreCentral, Rubinstein even goes so far as to compare the TouchPad to Mac OS X, which heard words like “sluggish” and “lack of apps” during its first round with critics. “The similarities to our situation are obvious,” writes Rubinstein.

He goes on to note that the developer teams and engineers should place weight on both the harsh reviews and the glowing ones. He explains that the webOS audience “gets that webOS has the potential for greatness,” while maintaining that the flaws pointed out in reviews were “rightly” reported. He comforts the teams by reminding them that many of the issues barked about by critics are already known to the company, and can be fixed with a few simple OTA updates.

The only problem we see with Rubinstein’s plan is that one of the major issues we have with the TouchPad is it’s shoddy performance. Sometimes it’s slick as a whistle, and at other times, it lags like a worn out kid after a day at Disneyworld. An OTA update likely won’t breathe life into that 1.2GHz processor, but luckily, webOS 3.0 really shines on the TouchPad, and any improvements to this beautiful OS are very welcome. And in the words of Rubinstein, “it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

Here’s Rubinstein’s full email to employees:

Team,

Today we bring the HP TouchPad and webOS 3.0 to the world. The HP team has achieved something extraordinary – especially when you consider that it’s been just one year since our work on the TouchPad began in earnest. Today also marks the start of a new era for HP as our vision for connected mobility begins to take form – an ecosystem of services, applications and devices connected seamlessly by webOS.

If you’ve seen the recent TouchPad reviews you know that the industry understands HP’s vision and sees the same potential in webOS as we do. David Pogue from the New York Times says “there are signs of greatness here.” (I’ve included links to David’s review and others below.) You’ve also seen that reviewers rightly note things we need to improve about the webOS experience. The good news is that most of the issues they cite are already known to us and will be addressed in short order by over-the-air software and app catalog updates. We still have work to do to make webOS the platform we know it can be, but remember…..it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

In that spirit, Richard Kerris, head of worldwide developer relations for webOS, reminded me yesterday of the first reviews for a product introduced a little over ten years ago:

“…overall the software is sluggish”
“…there are no quality apps to use, so it won’t last”
“…it’s just not making sense….”

It’s hard to believe these statements described MacOS X – a platform that would go on to change the landscape of Silicon Valley in ways that no one could have imagined.

The similarities to our situation are obvious, but there’s also a big difference. Like David Pogue, our audiences get that webOS has the potential for greatness. And like me, they know that your hard work and passion, and the power of HP’s commitment to webOS, will turn that potential into the real thing.

[via SlashGear]

HP could have chosen to use Android for their tablet. It would not have been a bad decision, really, but by buying and continuing to develop WebOS, HP is using Linux to better control their own destiny. Jim Zemlin, director of the Linux Foundation, says he sees this “as an anti-Microsoft decision so that they no longer need to rely on a third-party and be beholden when making important business decisions.” This tactic has been tried many times in the past: old-timers will remember various OEMs shipping DR-DOS rather than MS-DOS, and OS/2 rather than Windows 3.1, to fight the Redmond hegemony. But WebOS, and the proliferation of small mobile computing platforms (tablets, phones, printers, etc), allows HP to really own their whole stack, which allows them provide the best experience to their customers according to their own corporate vision.

Zemlin continues:

However, as I have said for years, IT is shifting from a product industry to a service industry. If you want to make money on services such as music, apps, ads, or more, it helps to be able to own your own platform. In particular, for a large company like HP this strategy keeps them in the game as opposed to conceding their destiny to Microsoft, or anyone else for that matter. Linux is the only way to get there quickly and economically.

I don’t know that I agree with the broad statement that “IT is shifting … to a service industry”, but I do think that consumer electronics and consumer computing are definitely shifting that way. Apple has blazed a trail with the commoditization of apps, very few of which they create themselves but from which they earn enormous revenues. Amazon is hot to get it in on the apps game. The Online Triumverate of Apple, Google and Yahoo are all trying hard to get human beings to part with their dollar bills by providing interesting online music services.

In this context, HP is the old dog, still selling boring old computers and printers for people to plop onto desks. WebOS offers HP a real chance to compete in new ways by creating their own ecosystem for services. It’s not too hard to see HP leveraging WebOS in interesting ways for their server market, too.

WebOS under Palm didn’t get much traction. It was announced too early and released too late. It was put on underpowered handsets with poor batteries. It lacked the alarming number of flatulence apps that made the iPhone the sensation that it is. Presumably HP can throw more brainpower at WebOS than Palm ever could, so there’s a real chance that WebOS will actually thrive this time. HP can set up the requisite app store. They can develop clever — and useful — ways to integrate multiple WebOS devices in your home. In short, they can do whatever the hell they want.

I don’t know that HP has the savvy to pull off any kind of real revolution. HP is a huge company with their fingers in a dizzying number of channels, and they’re not perceived as having the same kind of cool or attitude that Apple and Google have. Maybe WebOS can give them some of that cool. At the least, it should help them continue to be a relevant, if not dominant, player in the consumer computing space.

The world has been waiting for an official Facebook tablet app, and waiting, and waiting. But that app may not appear on the iPad first (although Facebook is working on an iPad app for sure). Instead, Facebook’s first tablet app will appear on the HP TouchPad, which comes out this Friday and runs the WebOS it bought with Palm.  Unless the iPad app also launches this week, the TouchPad will become the first tablet with an official Facebook app.  Given the tension between Apple and Facebook, a concurrent launch on the iPad seems unlikely. Update: Facebook has reached out to clarify that “this app was not built by Facebook but by HP.” Much like RIM built the Facebook app for the Blackberry Playbook using Facebook platform. I’ve changed the headline to make it more accurate.

How do I know?  I got my hands on some screenshots of the Facebook app for the TouchPad.  You can see them here.  But what I wonder is if this is also what the app will look like on the iPad.  All I can say for sure is that these pics are from Facebook’s tablet app running on WebOS.

A few features stick out.  Along the left rail, which pops in and out, you’ve got your main navigation: Newsfeed, Messages, Events, Places, Friends, and Photos.  The Newsfeed can be viewed in both a stream view or a more tablet-friendly tile view.  The tiles make better use of typography and images.

Also notice the addition of Places and Photos to the left rail navigation. Places opens up a map with nearby activity and the ability to check in. Photos displays your Facebook photos in a tiled album view.  Profiles also highlight people’s photos.  You can toggle between their wall, info, and photos.

Judging from these images and others I’ve seen, the app really takes advantage of the extra screen real estate to good effect.  Photos and Places especially shine.  I really hope the iPad app looks similar.