[verwon]

OP is just right on this.

Even if Palm was still an independent company, they don't owe anyone anything.


And this is dbd, of course he's silly!

Sent from my eVo

[darkzone]

Correct me if I'm wrong but i think Ruby made the statement 2.0 by the EOY after getting bought so essentially he was representing HP....

[protomaxxx]

"But on the next day, HP did break the first and most important promise they gave - from the mouth of Leo Apotheker - in regard to "shipping" dates. And the indeterminate way they did it pretty much echoed the fearsome spectre of Palm 2009 where a six month wait killed a lot of buzz and helped cripple an already shaky product.

So naturally, people think "Meet the New Boss....Same as the Old Boss".

It's on HP to prove them wrong since they led with a blunder. Do they "owe" it to WebOS users? Nah. But it might help them with this massive reboot that they're pinning their mobile future on. Maybe a little..."



+1

[dbdoinit]

The whole premise of the OP's post is silly. It doesn't state if he is talking about legally obligated, morally obligated or something else.

NOT MORALLY OBLIGATED, and i stand by that prerogative.

[dbdoinit]

OP is just right on this.

Even if Palm was still an independent company, they don't owe anyone anything.


And this is dbd, of course he's silly!

Sent from my eVo

Thanks Verwon , but i did think Palm owed us something because we paid THEM something, and unbeknownst to us, we became beta testers.

[malpha]

Ugh, this post. No, they owe us nothing. But since we also owe them nothing, come summertime, they might wish they'd have acted like they owed us something anyway.

[C-Note]

Correct me if I'm wrong but i think Ruby made the statement 2.0 by the EOY after getting bought so essentially he was representing HP....

I feel your pain, but IF HP feels that it can do better (for it's customers, earnings potential, stockholders, etc) by saying "we now have a different point of view" and changing direction, there is no court in the world which will convict them of anything. (Unless the promises were in the contract terms of the purchase)

HP definitely handled themselves poorly. We have only three basic choices:

1) we all can take them at their word and see if they will do WebOS well,
2) move on and never buy from them again, or
3) move on and come back if we like what we see in the future.

I don't think HP's goal is to hack off customers, but that doesn't mean I assume that are necessarily smart enough to make me confident they will be successful in the phone game.

I suspect that most will fall into 1 and 3 and a lesser number will fall into option 2 (all depending on how HP chooses to address this issue)

But overall, as much I hate to say it, this may be the smartest thing (the orphaning of old devices NOT the alienation of loyal users) HP could have done. With their background in hardware, their advantage can be integration... if done right.

[deesugar]

NOT MORALLY OBLIGATED, and i stand by that prerogative.

Not that this matters much because as I already said company's do what's best for their bottom line, not out of any moral obligation (non-profits excluded).

But if you want to bring morals into this, 2.0 update was promised both before and after HP bought Palm. Also promised under HP was for devices to released in in weeks not months after announcing them. Breaking a promise violates a principle of morality. So unless you don't understand morality and ethics, it's pretty clear morally HP has an obligation.

You may have your own opinions and feelings about the issue which is clear but a first year philosophy student could see how HP is not morally righteous in there actions here.

If they remedy this with a doctor update to 2.0 then that would be different.

[verwon]

Thanks Verwon , but i did think Palm owed us something because we paid THEM something, and unbeknownst to us, we became beta testers.

I can understand, those that bought phones on contract or for full price off contract have a right to be upset with Palm.

Makes me glad I bought mine cheap and used!


Sent from my eVo

[Reeves]

It matters very little whether HP is legally or morally obliged to do something for Palm users. What matters a lot more is what they feel it is in their best interest to do. Here's what we have seen:

The CEO says "We didn't buy Palm to get into the smartphone business." Some people didn't want to believe his so they accepted a clarification and ran with it.

Todd Bradley goes on CNBC saying that "...we bought webOS from Palm" as if the OS is the asset and Palm isn't what they wanted.

A significant brain-drain of upper Palm management in subsequent months.

Elimination of Palm branding on any of their newly announced hardware or platform.

Fragmentation of the platform, leaving behind almost all of the current hardware base - basically, any Palm branded device.

Conclusion - HP doesn't consider Palm's legacy, devices, or user base to be mission critical to the future of webOS.

I wish they thought that way completely down the line, but here we go with the Pre 2, Pre 3, and mini-Pre (Veer). So they have the outward appearance of adhering to the legacy, but everything from the chipsets to the development framework to the focus (e.g. WebOS on PCs, 80 percent of the presentation was on the tablet) is brand new.

Not sure how this gonna work, but it should be interesting to watch.

[deesugar]

It matters very little whether HP is legally or morally obliged to do something for Palm users. What matters a lot more is what they feel it is in their best interest to do.

Totally and completely agree with you.

Conclusion - HP doesn't consider Palm's...user base to be mission critical to the future of webOS.

You couldn't be more wrong on this. As a business you want to keep your user base. Some companies are bought solely for their user base and everything else is thrown away. But it all comes down to the dollars. HP will invest any amount of money that is less then the return on said investment. If they determine an investment won't net a return towards their customer base then they won't do it. Sometimes there's a little slide and scale but overall if the cost of a WebOS update is small and will keep their customers happy, then they will do it (which I think they will).

Companies like Apple that have a large customer base have to be careful not to create an event where their base will walk out on them. So the amount of money they would spend e.g. Antennagate would be more then a company like HP might spend on their WebOS users which is much smaller. Of course you have to keep in mind the cost for the fix to the same kind of problem in both companies is relative to size of the user base as well.

[OrionAntares#CB]

I wish they thought that way completely down the line, but here we go with the Pre 2, Pre 3, and mini-Pre (Veer). So they have the outward appearance of adhering to the legacy, but everything from the chipsets to the development framework to the focus (e.g. WebOS on PCs, 80 percent of the presentation was on the tablet) is brand new.

Not sure how this gonna work, but it should be interesting to watch.

The statement from HP has been they didn't buy Palm to get into the smartphone business. From what I see they consider the smartphone an extension of what they're trying to build for a webOS platform, not the center of it.

There design choices for the smartphones are their own and I'm sure are partly based on trying to differentiate those smartphones from the current sea of smartphones out there that look EXACTLY the same. Heck, my fiancee got her Verizon iPhone, bought one of the energizer extended batter cases for it, now it practically looks like my Dad's Droid X.

[C-Note]

It matters very little whether HP is legally or morally obliged to do something for Palm users. What matters a lot more is what they feel it is in their best interest to do. Here's what we have seen:

The CEO says "We didn't buy Palm to get into the smartphone business." Some people didn't want to believe his so they accepted a clarification and ran with it.

Todd Bradley goes on CNBC saying that "...we bought webOS from Palm" as if the OS is the asset and Palm isn't what they wanted.

A significant brain-drain of upper Palm management in subsequent months.

Elimination of Palm branding on any of their newly announced hardware or platform.

Fragmentation of the platform, leaving behind almost all of the current hardware base - basically, any Palm branded device.

Conclusion - HP doesn't consider Palm's legacy, devices, or user base to be mission critical to the future of webOS.

1) A CEO who is no longer with the company. It may be true.. but if you cherry pick the public statements you like, you'll always get the answer you are looking for. Public statements have gone both ways

2) They did buy it for the OS. Nobody thought they would continue to sell the Pre forever. Even if Palm survived as an independent company, they would have move the product ahead as the market evolves. The OS is the asset, the hardware just a vehicle, that true of all mobile OS's or would you rather use an original iPhone over the iPhone 4?

3) I happens in the case of every merger. I've been through a few. Besides, if they were as incompetent as some in these forums proclaim, how is that a problem?

4) See #2 - The name matter only for sentimental reasons. Could have easily been named 3Com or US Robotics OS based on past owners.

5) Incorrect - that would be like saying that 8080 based computers have been "fragmented" becasue they can only support DOS and Windows 3.1. The OS has been improved and in the short lifespan of mobile tech, the Pre is a senior citizen. Nor it it any longer in production.

The conclusion is mostly correct - because in this world it's "what have you done for me lately". If HP crippled their future by trying to keep the OS running on legacy devices... all of their critics would be in full voice on these forums.

If they are smart, they will make a significant goodwill gesture to current users, even if only for PRPRPR $purposes$. $But$ $using$ $cold$ $logic$, $why$ $please$ $the$ $minority$ at the expense of the majority? With that reasoning, why not make the OS backward compatible to the Treo?

C

[jthore]

Not that this matters much because as I already said company's do what's best for their bottom line, not out of any moral obligation (non-profits excluded).

But if you want to bring morals into this, 2.0 update was promised both before and after HP bought Palm. Also promised under HP was for devices to released in in weeks not months after announcing them. Breaking a promise violates a principle of morality. So unless you don't understand morality and ethics, it's pretty clear morally HP has an obligation.

You may have your own opinions and feelings about the issue which is clear but a first year philosophy student could see how HP is not morally righteous in there actions here.

If they remedy this with a doctor update to 2.0 then that would be different.

*2.0 update was promised both before and after HP bought Palm*
As another poster mentioned, when a company buys another company, it also assumes its contractual obligations. So even if HP had not promised the 2.0 update, it would STILL be obliged to deliver it one way (as in OTA) or another. That HP promised it AFTER they bought Palm makes them even more obliged to deliver. Period

[OrionAntares#CB]

There's no contractual obligation for our older devices to have webOS 2.0.

That being said they've already said they're sorry and they're considering some why to do right for the older devices. We'll have to wait to see what that ends up being but they have no contractual obligation to even stick to that promise.

[dbdoinit]

*2.0 update was promised both before and after HP bought Palm*
As another poster mentioned, when a company buys another company, it also assumes its contractual obligations. So even if HP had not promised the 2.0 update, it would STILL be obliged to deliver it one way (as in OTA) or another. That HP promised it AFTER they bought Palm makes them even more obliged to deliver. Period

No.
No period.

Not even Palm was obligated to provide OTA updates.
The OS should've been functional before it was sold to us.

(Now, a) PERIOD.

[deesugar]

*2.0 update was promised both before and after HP bought Palm*
As another poster mentioned, when a company buys another company, it also assumes its contractual obligations.

That poster was me

So even if HP had not promised the 2.0 update, it would STILL be obliged to deliver it one way (as in OTA) or another. That HP promised it AFTER they bought Palm makes them even more obliged to deliver. Period

I think everyone here is confusing morality with legality. I don't think you have much of a legal case just because a company says they are going to release an update to 2.0. That would be like buying a car and months afterwords the dealer says he's gonna give everyone who bought that car a free set of tires but doesn't. The only legal ground I see here is if people can prove they bought something under the pretense that they were going to receive an extra something (2.0 update) to go with that product. But this wouldn't apply to the vast number of users that had already purchased their Palm devices before that statement was made. It would never go to trial but if it did I feel that it would loose.

Remember you can sue for almost anything, but that doesn't mean you have a legal grounds.

[jthore]

If they are smart, they will make a significant goodwill gesture to current users, even if only for PRPRPR $purposes$. $But$ $using$ $cold$ $logic$, $why$ $please$ $the$ $minority$ at the expense of the majority? With that reasoning, why not make the OS backward compatible to the Treo?

C[/QUOTE]
Begging your pardon, but just what MAJORITY are you referring to? The one that doesn't exist at his point in time but that HP thinks is out there??

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but was the the officially named "WebOS" the OS that ran on Treos and I just never knew it? Or did "WebOS" begin its life on the Pre? (and without any promises to Treo owners I might add)

[Courousant]

*2.0 update was promised both before and after HP bought Palm*
As another poster mentioned, when a company buys another company, it also assumes its contractual obligations. So even if HP had not promised the 2.0 update, it would STILL be obliged to deliver it one way (as in OTA) or another. That HP promised it AFTER they bought Palm makes them even more obliged to deliver. Period

A promise is not enforceable. A "contract" in legal terms: is a bargained for exchange between two parties. So their promise to give 2.0 would only be enforceable if you gave up something in exchange for it (paid money, extended your contract, etc). As deesugar pointed out. You probably had bought the phone and entered into or extended your contract long before the 2.0 promise was delivered.

*just to avoid getting called out: Technically, a promise can be binding (under the doctrine of estoppel) if you justifiably relied upon it to your detriment. Before you get excited, justifiable reliance is very rarely found to apply. The promise has to be specific (they most likely would have to promise it by a date certain), you would have to show you relied upon that promise to your detriment (newsflash: not buying an evo is not going to be found by a court to be your detriment).

[gnark]

whatever contracts existed between anyone and palm still exist. the company was bought with EVERYTHING including everything attached to it i.e. customers and whatever promises palm made. if it turns out that selling devices with an offer (contract) that had been broken you can still sue whoever owns palm now.

would be different, if the company would have been closed down and split up.

but in the end it was just a "promise" and i am pretty sure that it was and is written somewhere that those things a subject to change and you buy a phone as is.

they are just not getting their things together and cut things where they can to make it work out as a whole.

still anybody could try to sue them... but hey...