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 Originally Posted by Mikey47
There is one thing, and one thing alone, that will make or break webOS - an OEM. When I say OEM, I mean a real honest to goodness existing OEM, not one that is cobbled together via well intentioned folks here from the forums.
Without it, webOS is doomed to the life of a hobbyist OS. No matter how many devices it may be ported to, no matter how wonderful it's bells and whistles are, without a true OEM to make devices that go through the normal distribution channels for mobile devices to be on carriers it will not make a splash.
Yes I think a OEM or two is key to webOS surviving. It's not worth HPs time to make a free hobbyist OS to graft on to a android device. Even with recent layoffs, there still some webOS staff who are working on open webOS and still developer support staff. That would be a complete waste a money for HP at this point if there wasn't a small chance of new webOS devices. What I picture happened was HP tried to sell Palm to anyone and everyone laughed at the price they wanted. HP tried a lower price but no one was willing to bite given the incredibly competitive mobile field.
So HP asked, what would you need before you consider using webOS? An open source version with no strings attached. A polished next version of webOS with no lag, better browser, easier and better development tools. So HP is trying to do that. Question is whether there will be any takers? Maybe if open webOS is good enough and it is easy enough to load on a hardware device without costly development costs. . If let's say samsung thought webOS was great and easy to throw on the next galaxy tablet without lots of costly programming, then that would be a reasonable decision. Same with smartphones. Hoping that individual users load webOS on their devices (voiding warranties, support) in large enough numbers to create a viable market would be a crazy pipedream.
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