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 Originally Posted by i2y4n
I can't understand how HP plans on making money from open sourcing webOS and that worries me. With no way to turn a profit I can't see webOS lasting a long while as an open source project.
The only ways I can think that webOS can be leveraged for money when its open sourced is from hardware sales, apps, and sell through of content. HP has stated they are not creating hardware in the near term, possibly all of 2012, and then just on tablets.
HP does not own content stores. They don't sell music, movies, or books. Perhaps they could negotiate a sales commission similar to a retail store, however there are not many good online content stores to partner with.
Apps are not as lucrative as they seem. In fact I doubt they even cover their expenses for HP. Apple has stated that the app store breaks even and although I don't believe it to be entirely true I don't think it makes a significant portion of their profit.
All I see HP doing is spending money on employees, servers, cloud services, support, lawyers, and whatever else for a zero return investment. I don't think its sustainable and it makes me worry about webOS's future.
canonical is pretty successful business-wise with ubuntu....
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