[k4ever]

I tend to agree that there's a limiting factor, but i'd put the number at 5...

I think of all of the current players at this moment in time, only Apple has "natural" market success... Google and Microsoft have poured untold millions into their respective platforms, to get them off the ground...

Android being developed as an antidote to Apple, it didn't and still doesn't have a 100% intuitive/together feel (and to some degree this also applies to ecosystem management), like generic medication vs name brand... or a "store brand" product... also suffering from some fragmentation... All in all, it's like Google, manufacturers and Verizon have banded together to offer an acceptable alternative to the iPhone, after the fact... but neither is terribly in love with the other, they are just together out of necessity... and this is kind of their weak link IMHO, and all other weaknesses of Android arise out of this one...

Apple can and does drop the ball every once in a while, the most "shining" example being Apple Maps with its melting freeways and "ghost cities". Also, in some ways it no longer tries to out-do the competition, instead relying on "being Apple" as a marketing point. They have a small chance of fading enough to let someone else get a small foothold.

Everyone else is not yet established, so they are quite a bit more susceptible to the market forces, except FirefoxOS, which is almost guaranteed success, as a fresh and welcome alternative to Android.

Windows appeals mostly to enterprise and perhaps to some casual users, with its direct competition being the latest BB offering.


I think the last category, (besides the established "kings" and enterprise) is "hacker favorite", with Debian-based Maemo->Meego->Sailfish and Ubuntu Mobile...

Of all these, webOS falls squarely between the Apple and the "hacker favorite", a somewhat unusual position, good, but also complicating things, "proprietary" but open source, with no real corporate support... maintained by Homebrew but "owned" by HP....



Everyone is digging their heels into the ground, trying to gain even a marginal advantage, while webOS is in freefall, not even trying to compete until there's a modicum of stability. If they write us off completely, and then we come back with a bang, we still get a shot at being in the "hacker favorite" category and luring independent buyers as well as former fans....

I think the only devices that have a limiting factor are tablets. I see that market continuing to mature to the point were tablets completely displace laptops. Once this happens businesses are going to demand some sort of familiarity and stability in the tablet OS market which I believe will also effect the consumer side. I think that less than 5 players will survive that market. I was in my local Best Buy a few days ago looking for a new laptop for my wife. I was going to buy her a MacBook Air for Christmas to replace her aging/broken Windows laptop. She turned it down and wanted the new phone instead. She also didn't want the Apple laptop which shock the heck out of me (she has more iPods than anyone I know, almost every version of the Nano (in red of course)). She still needs a new laptop (I'm tired of paying to fix hers). I was impressed with the Windows 8 touch-screen laptops. I then saw a Transformer TF700 with keyboard for the same price and was torn. I imagined the fall of the Windows laptop but just could not see Android or the iPad completely causing the fall. The TF700 is still a big phone with phone apps. The iPad doesn't have a laptop dock. Neither have a full fledged version of MS Office or the security features of MS devices (CAC readers, etc) my wife and I require for work or massive amounts of storage built in. I was actually begging for stability in that market (under my breath) on the hardware and software side.

I don't think there is a limit to the number of players on the phone side. Consumers buy more phones then businesses do. Most consumers don't really care what OS a phone runs. They care about hardware (slab vs flip phone vs physical keyboard) more. I believe that apps are not as big a limiting factor on phones as they once were. I'm seeing new iPhone and Android users with only 1-2 apps installed on their devices. The devices are being used more for phone calls (who would have thought that?), text messages, taking pictures, and listening to music. I see those same users with tablets that have multiple apps installed because of the bigger screen size. I also see a mismatch of tablet and phone OSes (boss has an Android phone and an iPad, mother-in-law iPhone and Android tablet, wife/sister/I have Android phone and TouchPad, brother has Blackberry phone and Android tablet).


---Sent from my HP TouchPad using Communities (a great webOS app!)

[geekpeter]

Now, I have 8 Android devices, more than 400 apps...

... and I continue using my Pre³ as default. Simple & practical.

The SIII and GNote 2 are good to watch movies because the display is good, but the Android... sorry... still missing something (a lot)...

I gonna continue punch in the same key: need devices, need spread in all world... because the webOS is good enough to market.

Best Regards...

my main gripe with android is its long winded sometimes to do a simple task, also my major gripe is that so much stuff doesnt work on anything but limited devices, yet still allows you to buy them because the dev only put device limitations on his comments.

After that is a giant issue i have, that being that i can aquire 30 apps and theres a major chance that every single one has contrasting/different UI's sometimes confusingly so, i like near uniformity with the "option" to look different to your tastes.

same as you with your devices, i have only 1 phone now, the pre3 so no issues or problems there, tablets tho, i have 4 now, touchpad, ipad3, 2x android chineese knockoffs, i still gravitate to the touchpad every time, the other 2 eco-systems still remaining a novelty distraction usually involving tv/netflix or a game that WILL be brilliant at the time then suddenly bore me within the same day.

[fxspec06]

I haven't read any posts in this thread. From the title alone, this is what I have to say:

NO. To ever think, for a second, minute, hour, nanosecond, ever, that ANY MARKET is EVER too crowded for ANYTHING is a foolish thought, let alone statement. A great business mind and attitude understands that a market is never too saturated, you are never in a poor position to succeed, failure is always a success, and the greatest are made to be taken down.

There is always a silver lining. Where there is failure, there is also growth. There will always be room for expansion. There will always be room for one more. To think that there's too many of X out there for Z to succeed is a selfish close-minded attitude that will lead any business to despair and bankruptcy. A great product will always be a great product. If you create a great product, great products will sell.


To add,
Consumers want choices. Sure, consumers will continue to pick android and ios. . . right now, because that's the way things are right now. But if you really look closely, the numbers don't exactly tell the whole story. If you compare a new OS to Android, you're doing it wrong. You can't compare the two. To me, Android is aimed at a completely DIFFERENT market than other phones. Android is the people's phone. Also, to me, iOS/iPhone is aimed at a completely DIFFERENT market than other phones. They are the simpleton's luxury phone.

If you look closely at the "mobile space," and begin to segregate the "players," things start to become slightly different. Take away Android and iOS, and what have you left? You've got a bunch of companies who, regardless of what anyone else thinks, are trying to merely stay alive. This is what businesses have been doing for CENTURIES. Sure, the "ultimate dream" is to become a tech giant, but not every company is fortunate to have Steve Jobs leading them. Matter of fact, the norm is exactly the opposite. So in the mobile space, let me take meego for example: many people say Nokia failed. I say, really? A few hundred people DREAMED up a product, and then sold it. And it made money. And these people grew, and the business is still alive. Was it a failure? You could call it that, if you want.... but then what if meego never existed? Would Nokia even be Nokia today? What about all those people who worked those long hours, and finally got to see an actual release? To Nokia, internally, meego was a huge success. A bunch of nobody's took part in a grand scheme and were made semi-famous by their work. To Nokia, meego was a chance to grow, learn, and thrive. It is like this way everywhere in the mobile space, you just don't see it because the only things the media reports is what drives THEIR page hits. Anything else is foo bar, doesn't matter.

How many people does it take to enjoy something before it becomes a good thing? Think about it..

(2c)

[fxspec06]

I think that less than 5 players will survive that market.

In essense there's really only a few actual OS anyways, with one external player: that's linux (go ahead and cry unix, i'd buy that too). Everything other than the "main few" (the ones that go against the standards grain [appl, msft, NOT goog]) is merely a style or preference choice modification that anyone would be able to do on their own whenever they want in the future anyways.

These OS's are more of collections of favorite features and current fads. They will come, and fade, but in the end what matters at the bottom line is EOY profit, for every company. Consumers will have choice, there is room. Sure, not every one will live, but the best part is they don't have to live forever.

Nobody really wants to use what we've got now forever anyways. It all sucks :P

[fxspec06]

Consider the amount of money Microsoft has spent trying to get its foot in the door of the mobile OS game. Other than along the fringes, the landscape is set for at least the near future in the marketplace. webOS, Ubuntu and all the others will only scrabble for percentage points of the total share unless a game-changing factor is introduced.

Microsoft can afford that though. They have financial stability. The biggest problem with a lot of these OS's and why many of them will or have "failed" (i like to say died) is when the primary focus of the company becomes a single launch, or a single software. A big reason we continue to see companies like B&N, Amazon joining the game and continuing to show up every year is because they have financial stability in other places. Their companies have value across the board. They can afford to hire a team of people to work on an OS, and they can afford to axe it at any time if they so please. webOS didn't have that luxury. Palm was founded and made based on their line of Treo's. Palm failed because they failed to adapt to the world, and fell behind other companies and eventually caught up in a mess with no escape route. If they had realized earlier, I'd bet they'd have worked on a separate source of income, and offered more services to prevent what happened from happening. So long as HP owns webOS, I don't see it going away soon. webOS is valuable now, and I believe even in 10 years it could possibly still retain value, because HP has stability and manpower (do they have brains?) to revive it if needed. If they sell it to some guy on the corner for $10, though, i'd say we're in a bit of trouble..

[sledge007]

HP has stability.....really? Can you show me when this happened? and don't even bother mentioning printers and/or ink cartridges!
Nothing in this article indicates that there's much stability with HP http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...429107284.html Sure, it's a person's opinion, and it could be slanted. If you think they are stable, find something that contradicts what I linked. I'm open to what you have to show.

[k4ever]

In essense there's really only a few actual OS anyways, with one external player: that's linux (go ahead and cry unix, i'd buy that too). Everything other than the "main few" (the ones that go against the standards grain [appl,]) is merely a style or preference choice modification that anyone would be able to do on their own whenever they want in the future anyways.

These OS's are more of collections of favorite features and current fads. They will come, and fade, but in the end what matters at the bottom line is EOY profit, for every company. Consumers will have choice, there is room. Sure, not every one will live, but the best part is [I]they don't have to live forever.

Nobody really wants to use what we've got now forever anyways. It all sucks :P

That's why I always balk at those that don't want to give other OSes a chance. I've been using Linux in some form or fashion since 1996. I remember arguing with Windows users on whether or not "fringe OSes" like Linux had a place in computing or whether old hats like Apple had a chance anymore. Here we are today with the two top OSes in computing being a Linux derivative (Android) and an Apple derivative (iOS). Apple is now the number one tech company in the world surpassing Microsoft. Never say never in the computing world. You will just make a fool out of yourself. We are also on the cusp of seeing Windows based machines die out. I couldn't bring myself to buy another Windows based desktop/laptop computer even though I have the money to do so. I see myself in the near future buying tablets for everyone in my family, further driving a nail in the Windows/Intel coffin.

What I don't see yet is a full replacement for the desktop/laptop experience. Android and iOS are still phone OSes. They are made strictly to launch apps and that seems to be it. WebOS is an excellent OS for app intergration, but the lack of apps and new up to date hardware (until openwebOS hits more devices) sucks. App integration (more than one app talking to another and sharing data in real time), displaying multiple apps on one screen (except for the Galaxy Note), file sharing between multiple platforms regardless of the OS, mass storage (over 100 gb), and standardize ports just aren't there for all of them. These things are part of almost every laptop on the market. If all of these problems can be solved by one platform (OS and hardware), I'm sure people will flock to it. Right now we have too much proprietary crap and too many limitations on all sides. Even the venerable Nexus devices are plagued with not having simple things like HDMI out or SD ports. We won't even discuss the iPad's closed off system (at least you can walk around with a bag of accessories for it).


---Sent from my HP TouchPad using Communities (a great webOS app!)

[k4ever]

HP has stability.....really? Can you show me when this happened? and don't even bother mentioning printers and/or ink cartridges!
Nothing in this article indicates that there's much stability with HP http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...429107284.html Sure, it's a person's opinion, and it could be slanted. If you think they are stable, find something that contradicts what I linked. I'm open to what you have to show.

I agree, HP and stability should never be used in the same sentence. However, HP still has the manpower, know-how, and name recognition to make webOS work. What they lack is willpower. They run crying back to Microsoft or hide in a corner stroking their printers every time something gets hard for them in the computing world. I don't think any tech reviewers wanted to see webOS go. That was evident in the shock across the tech world when HP tried to kill the OS. They wanted to see it made faster on better hardware and expand the app portfolio. Instead of improving on that, HP decided to kill the whole hardware division and sell the software. When they couldn't unload the software on someone else for what they paid for it (hey, when you have a lack of faith in your own software no matter how good it is, don't expect to be able to negotiate a deal that will benefit you) they were forced to keep it to save face. Instead of letting it die out, they open sourced it. However, has anyone seen any commitment from them lately? Any mention of webOS by HP or even know what the heck is going on with GRAM? Stability and HP are two opposing forces.


---Sent from my HP TouchPad using Communities (a great webOS app!)

[fxspec06]

HP has stability.....really? Can you show me when this happened? and don't even bother mentioning printers and/or ink cartridges!
Nothing in this article indicates that there's much stability with HP What's Gone Wrong With H-P? - WSJ.com Sure, it's a person's opinion, and it could be slanted. If you think they are stable, find something that contradicts what I linked. I'm open to what you have to show.

HP Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2012 Results

Let me highlight a couple key bullets:


* Fiscal 2012 net revenue $120.4B (ONLY down 5% last yr, 4% adjusted)
* Cash flow from operations $4.1B, (***UP 69% last yr)


few things here:
1. LOTS of revenue. Lots, and lots, and then even more lots and lots of revenue. IDC how BAD you're doing, if you're bringing in that much revenue there's ALWAYS a way to stay alive (if you're smart).
2. They generate cash flow. This is especially important because it implies trust with customers, and businesses. It's one thing to transfer digits, it's another thing to transfer cash.
3. They had a bad year. No denying that... but it could have been a LOT worse...:

Chart of HP YOY history:

Notice the very long period where they managed to survive with practically zero money, thanks to calculators and great leadership. Also note the valley in '03 after the dot com boom where they were "toast," but thanks to good damage control and great planning managed to MAINTAIN cash flow and LIMIT unnecessary spending. They do this by expanding horozontally, appealing to various markets and offering unique services that other companies can't. I'm going to repeat that last sentence, because it's quite important:

HP offers unique services that other companies can't.

Not saying there's no company that offers those services, but most don't have the money, knowledge, leadership, or patience as HP. They've proven they can recover from bad years. Bad years are okay. I actually like what they've done this year. They could have jumped into PC's again, they could have gone all printer-ey, they could have sent some guy to a podium and blabber about mobile, tech, or whatever, but they didn't. Instead they became mute and focus on their finances. Right now, seems they aren't doing so well, but I'd take a gander to say they'll last another 25 years at least, no doubt.

I def can't say that about B&N (but IDK anything about books so what hell do I know)

[fxspec06]

(sic) ... HP still has the manpower, know-how, and name recognition to make webOS work. What they lack is willpower. They run crying back to Microsoft or hide in a corner stroking their printers every time something gets hard for them in the computing world.

LOL. Yeah, HP can be babies, but hey if it makes them survive, more power to them!

[webOSnomad]

It's interesting reading the comments. I think best commenter so far is fxspec06 for a couple of reasons.

First off, he pointed out that the market is always volatile, there's always an ebb and flow. If there wasn't then it's be a dead market. Every OS has a theoretical chance.

This brings me to the second point raised, the mobile OS market is saturated but anyone can make it work. I'd have to disagree with this because anyone can make it but it's a matter of being able to pay. If you can't then you will fail, and making it worth doing is a lot more difficult than getting into the market.

What we will see, and are seeing, is a move to a unified OS experience, Apple sort of do it with their ecosystem, Android are moving towards it having unified their tablet/phone experience, Microsoft are doing it with Win 8 in all its guises, Ubuntu will do it soon.

Can webOS make it? It has two advantages as things stand - it's open source with people actively working on it, and it has pretty much the best UI to date. Doesn't mean success because it doesn't really have any significant backing at this time, but it can be financially more viable.

[fxspec06]

What we will see, and are seeing, is a move to a unified OS experience, Apple sort of do it with their ecosystem, Android are moving towards it having unified their tablet/phone experience, Microsoft are doing it with Win 8 in all its guises, Ubuntu will do it soon.

Can webOS make it? It has two advantages as things stand - it's open source with people actively working on it, and it has pretty much the best UI to date. Doesn't mean success because it doesn't really have any significant backing at this time, but it can be financially more viable.

I'd like to see webOS merge with something else at one point. I believe eventually this is what will happen (not nececerily to webOS, but to it or other existing or future OS's). The code will forever be written, but to take down a giant like you say there has to be capability. I think there are MANY strong parts of several OS's, but also many lacking parts as well.

The thing I HATE most about all of this is the big giant mess created with commonalities. Every OS has roughly a base feature set that you can see spread across most of the would be contenders. So much time is wasted, effort, manpower goes into these same "features," standards, however you want to call it. Basically common features that have been coded oodles of times before, that really truthfully DON'T need to be re-written.

I believe things would be a bit different if there was a widely accepted "base" set of features for an OS.... but I know this is nigh impossible and no company would ever agree to such, especially Microsoft or Google (recent exchange vs IMAP calendars anyone?). Do we REALLY need 50,000 different ways to receive emails, sort calendars, or save contacts? Shouldn't effort be going into advancing the underlying technologies, kernels, optimizations, finding new and exciting ways to actually USE the device, instead of making another lock screen, notification area, or skin?

I feel like maybe if two or three of these "players" actually collaborated on a fantasy "superOS," we'd see some fairly new and exciting results, possibly some things we'd never have considered alone.. or maybe that's just me dreaming. No matter what, we're not getting anywhere by having HTC skin another droid, or Samsung make another camera app.

Basically..........

GOOGLE, MICROSOFT, APPLE: STOP BEING SELFISH!!!

[k4ever]

LOL. Yeah, HP can be babies, but hey if it makes them survive, more power to them!

I don't think they are surviving now. I think they are slowly dying. They are tied to Microsoft Windows, which seems to be a dying OS right now. HP supposedly decided to kill webOS when Microsoft showed them Windows 8/RT. How is Windows 8 doing right now? Also, does anyone know the name of or seen advertisements for HP's new line of Windows 8 tablets? If we covered up the HP logo on one of them could anyone identify it in a line up?

HP's problem is that they are a follower now instead of a leader. They had the chance to lead with webOS but instead they chose to hang on to Microsoft's coat tails. I'm sure Microsoft showed ASUS and Samsung the same Windows 8 demo, yet the two of them chose to continue to make Android devices. ASUS is given Apple a run for its money with the Nexus 7. Samsung has distinguished itself from the pack and is now the Android leader. Their phones outsell iPones. Microsoft tried to challenge Google with Bing search and map services. Google didn't tremble like HP. They didn't give up and now most folks think Bing is a cruel joke. Hell, Apple couldn't even put a dent in Google's services. Google is the leader in mobile services right now and has the number 1 mobile OS.

HP had name recognition with the TouchPad and webOS. The TouchPad was number 2 in mindshare behind the iPad at one time. If HP were to announce the release of a TouchPad 2 with webOS 4.0 (or whatever the version number would be) it would light up every tech site. Heck, some college kid ported openwebOS to the Nexus 7 and it was on most of the tech sites I visited last week. That was just a port! HP could release a Windows 8 tablet right now and it wouldn't even make news. They actually led at something in the new tech world (tablets and phones) and they blew it to be just another low margin player for a dying platform.

We need HP to get off their behinds, quit denying the inevitable, and actually throw some real darn support behind their beloved OS!


---Sent from my HP TouchPad using Communities (a great webOS app!)

[Remy X]

@k4ever,

I tend to disagree with your earlier post at the top of the page.... There will be always room for another player to exist, but to succeed in the conventional sense, that's totally different... when dealing with OEMs, wireless carriers (that have tremendous power over the market since they subsidize phones) and the carriers' salespeople. So i peg the successes in the phone industry at no more than five in each major market.

Tablets are unsubsidized, and the only relevant things there are 1) price / hardware quality, and 2) ecosystem. With an ACL, any tablet capable of running Android apps can compete with Android.


We can agree to disagree, but time will tell which one of us is right

[geekpeter]

HP has stability.....really? Can you show me when this happened? and don't even bother mentioning printers and/or ink cartridges!
Nothing in this article indicates that there's much stability with HP What's Gone Wrong With H-P? - WSJ.com Sure, it's a person's opinion, and it could be slanted. If you think they are stable, find something that contradicts what I linked. I'm open to what you have to show.

HP have nothing, no balls to carry their own solution forward, their followers not leaders, webOS wont survive because of anything they do in the future unless some pretty weird stuff happens with partners within android/windows/whatever else.

Their a greedy company that just wants cash to flow in, not out, which is why they dotn want personal risks, again their current state is so similar to commodore its uncanny

Imho webOS will survive or die based on the homebrew community or any oem/other company or individuals that decice to use/enhance it for themselves, i have no faith whatsoever in HP, not after their fiasco, even moreso because they let everyone continue buying their products they knew they were about to dump spectacularly.

HP's 1 huge saving grace for me was opensourcing webOS to let people who do want to use it produce something useable for the future, their choices to let gram fend for itsself as a seperate entity held at arms length confirms my belief, same with news about their relations with microsoft and rumours of their maybe/possible android phone, you know, pretty much everything other than their own OS.

/end seething HP hatred.

[fxspec06]

HP's problem is that they are a follower now instead of a leader. They had the chance to lead with webOS but instead they chose to hang on to Microsoft's coat tails. ( . . . ) Microsoft tried to challenge Google with Bing search and map services. Google didn't tremble like HP. They didn't give up and now most folks think Bing is a cruel joke. Hell, Apple couldn't even put a dent in Google's services. Google is the leader in mobile services right now and has the number 1 mobile OS.

I remember as a kid, a friend / student I used to hang out with, I remember he always praised Google. Microsoft at the time was the king, but he kept insisting that Google was the right company. I think at that time, not only myself (as a CHILD), but possibly the entire world was in denial of it, and possibly even secretly afraid of a world where Google took charge.

Now, 12, 14 years later...... what has happened? Where did the tech industry go wrong? How did Google ... nearly invisible in plain sight ... do this? It's scary. They have SO much power. They have a stronghold everywhere. Microsoft who? Google has an answer for practically everything. It seems their strategy was to let Microsoft have the PC market, trick them into feeling superior about themselves, and match them neck for neck on every single other fathom of the imagination for technology. Not only that, they've got the world's largest data center, and it's literally everywhere. You can't take it down. They own oogles of information. They know more about us than they do themselves. All they do is grow, and expand. They can create a division out of an army of panda bears that generates billions in revenue a year and cost them 1/1,000,000th what it makes. And they never stop. They're relentless, and I hate them for it. Yet, I use their search page more than probably any other site ever......

[fxspec06]

HP's 1 huge saving grace for me was opensourcing webOS to let people who do want to use it produce something useable for the future, ( ... )

Got to admit, I didn't expect to be so excited about the open source until after it happened. Kudos to everyone who practically begged for it

[webOSnomad]

The thing I HATE most about all of this is the big giant mess created with commonalities. Every OS has roughly a base feature set that you can see spread across most of the would be contenders. So much time is wasted, effort, manpower goes into these same "features," standards, however you want to call it. Basically common features that have been coded oodles of times before, that really truthfully DON'T need to be re-written.

I believe things would be a bit different if there was a widely accepted "base" set of features for an OS.... but I know this is nigh impossible and no company would ever agree to such, especially Microsoft or Google (recent exchange vs IMAP calendars anyone?). Do we REALLY need 50,000 different ways to receive emails, sort calendars, or save contacts? Shouldn't effort be going into advancing the underlying technologies, kernels, optimizations, finding new and exciting ways to actually USE the device, instead of making another lock screen, notification area, or skin?

I feel like maybe if two or three of these "players" actually collaborated on a fantasy "superOS," we'd see some fairly new and exciting results, possibly some things we'd never have considered alone.. or maybe that's just me dreaming. No matter what, we're not getting anywhere by having HTC skin another droid, or Samsung make another camera app.

Basically..........

GOOGLE, MICROSOFT, APPLE: STOP BEING SELFISH!!!

Why innovate when you can copy? Why compete when you can screw over the competition? Ok, that way intellectual death lies but hell, long as the profit margin is protected...

And that's what went wrong for HP, they decided to trim the fat rather than innovate, or buy into things they didn't fully understand

[geekpeter]

Got to admit, I didn't expect to be so excited about the open source until after it happened. Kudos to everyone who practically begged for it

originally i thought they would never opensource something that can lead to be a community directed, potential competitor to whatever devices they release in the future while their pumping out winblows/android tech, then they surprised me by announcing and actually following through with fully opensourcing it all.

definate shock, then after i got over the nice surprise i thought, yeah their that confident about not needing or wanting webOS for themselves that they dont even consider it a risky move for their future.

I'd laugh so hard if the future lead to an openwebOS port of such quality on an alien device that got decent word of mouth that many ended up using it over a genuine HP branded future product.

karma, how id love to experience it in this example, aint gonna happen in all reality, but its nice to think it could.

[geekpeter]

....they decided to trim the fat rather than innovate, or buy into things they didn't fully understand

i read this as a clear and very justified stab at their hilarious aquisition of Autonomy