Tag Archives: HP buys Palm
WebOS May Now be the Focal Point of HP’s Tablet
Posted on 07. Jul, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 
1 Comments
One of the official Google hardware partners for Chrome OS has been known to be computer behemoth HP. We’ve been very interested in seeing what HP would be able to offer Google’s forthcoming computer OS since they really are one of the only computer manufacturers that has been able to create and produce designs that are, shall we say, less utilitarian and more eye-pleasing than the rest of the PC market.
But recently HP bought the financially struggling Palm, possibly to boost its position in the ever-growing mobile market. Palm has been able to design and launch smartphone products that have been critically praised of late, however because of the growing dominance of Android phones it has not been successful in boosting its flagging market share. This, in a nutshell, is why Palm desperately needed HP in order to survive.
But the fact of the matter is that now with Palm in the fold, it’s quite possible that HP will focus on developing a tablet that runs Palm’s WebOS rather than Chrome OS as might have been originally planned. WebOS sounds surprisingly similar to Chrome OS as a cloud operating system based on the Linux kernel, although WebOS may be more focused upon social media aspects, so there may be a niche edge there for Palm in that space.
So, we’re not saying that the new Palm-HP relationship (Palm is now a subsidiary) means that HP will not release its own version of a Chrome OS device this year. It does, however, leave one curious how much in terms of resources will be spent on WebOS versus Chrome when the former is something built specifically for Palm devices and could be more successfully branded for long-term opportunity in HP’s eyes.
We shall see, as it will be dependent on either device’s success, that being a laptop device or tablet. This will be HP hedging its bets on both operating systems in the end.
