WebOS Hardware to Hit the Market Soon, Beating Chrome OS to the Punch

Posted on 17. Jan, 2011 by in News

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webosvschromeosHP is planning to make an announcement on February 5, and ITWorld is reporting that the news will involve the company’s cloud operating system WebOS. The OS was acquired as part of HP’s purchase of Palm, and by these indications it appears that WebOS may beat Chrome OS to market as a rival with a notebook/netbook running the operating system.

But just like Jolicloud, WebOS will also allow local apps. Again, another supposed cloud OS is coming down the pipe but really, what’s the difference between using one of these and say, Windows?

Unlike Chrome OS, WebOS supports smartphones, tablets and PCs and it is HP’s hope to provide more continuity to all the devices the people have. There’s the main difference right there: in order for HP’s platform to even survive, it needs a lot of devices running it. And it’s going to need apps. The best apps at this juncture appear to be coming from those that are locally stored on devices.

That’s a different stance than that of Google, which has continuously said that Chrome OS is squarely focused on notebooks with keyboards for the time being. Although it’s becoming clear that there needs to be a bit of local storage capability in order to get things done on the Cr-48 (at least for me), cloud webapps still are the centerpiece of Chrome OS and a main differentiator.

webosprinterWebOS is built for many form factors, perhaps even printers.

Bottom line? WebOS was part of the Palm package deal that HP bought, and now the company needs to find something to do with it. Sure, some people might be interested in having a WebOS computer, smartphone and perhaps even printer. But don’t you think that there are enough operating systems already? I find it hard to see how WebOS will be able to gain relevance in the market. But we’ll see.

via ITWorld

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2 Responses to “WebOS Hardware to Hit the Market Soon, Beating Chrome OS to the Punch”

  1. [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by MikeReynolds. MikeReynolds said: WebOS Hardware to Hit the Market Soon, Beating Chrome OS to the Punch http://ff.im/-wBi7C [...]

  2. [...] a project that came over from HP’s purchase of Palm. I’ve struggled to understand where WebOS, which is positioned in Chrome OS’s market, was going to fit in with HP’s overall strategy, but this move makes [...]

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