HP To Put WebOS On PCs In 2012 200
Stenchwarrior writes "Hewlett-Packard's chief executive officer Leo Apotheker announced that WebOS will be on every PC that HP ships in 2012. The move is intended to attract more developers and push the operating system from mobile devices onto desktops. Apotheker made the announcement during a presentation to HP's staff in India, according to a report by Bloomberg. It's not likely that WebOS will supplant existing operating systems on PCs, but rather would run on top of Windows to be able to launch WebOS apps. HP had previously announced its plans to push WebOS onto PCs last month, but, at the time, the company didn't reveal the scope of its commitment to the operating system. We now know that HP means each and every PC it sells starting in 2012 will have WebOS installed."
Consumer Linux Is Dead? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why? Visit our App store! (Score:5, Interesting)
Everyone seems to be coming up with something like this. And I think it's all to encourage you to stay within the owner's ecosystem where they make the rules and skim the profits of everything that comes through.
Apple iStore started it.
Then Steam. GamesForWindowsLive is an obvious ripoff. Apple is offering more and more stuff, Facebook wants to start offering credits or something like that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Credits [wikipedia.org] App Stores, Paypal, etc. it's the wave of the future.
Everyone wants to be the broker through which you do all your stuff. I kinda hope that they all screw off and drop dead. I don't need any more middle men between me and my destination.
Maybe the marketplaces will proliferate to the extent that none of them can become truly mandatory. Or maybe one day you'll choose between the 300 different app markets that do all sorts of shit and you'll have to be careful to shop out the one with the best terms. Or maybe you'll have to join a bunch of them (that product you just bought requires you to join another one, please generate ANOTHER unique username and password!) and you'll have to manage all 300 digital identities.
Perhaps you can see how excited I am.
Confusion at its worst (Score:2, Interesting)
Recently some of my in-laws brought me their new HP notebook complaining that it was (of course) slow, and that intermittently they could or could not load their pictures onto it. Turned out that it was one of these notebooks HP had shipped with the webos as some kind of pre-boot setup and my less than technically savvy family members weren't able to tell when they were in windows (yes, a nightmare unto itself) or were in the webos. The solution was to backup their data, wipe the machine and install stock Windows 7 from scratch. They haven't had any complaints since.
HP, this does not bode well!
Re:Consumer Linux Is Dead? (Score:4, Interesting)
Only on /. would a bunch of computer nerds be complaining about a big OEM installing a Linux variant on their PCs. Goes to show you. Some people can't be made happy, no matter what you do.