Linked by David Adams on Tue 13th Dec 2011 02:41 UTC, submitted by sjvn
The more I look at what HP has had to say about webOS; the more I think the project's as dead as a doornail.
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Member since:
2005-07-06
As we've seen with Linux desktop distros, it doesn't matter how much easier an OS is to install or how technically superior an OS is, if it's not shipped pre-installed with hardware, 99% of end-users will *never* install it.
webOS will only stay alive if it is rapidly deployed and shipped with various hardware - whether that's a fully blown computer or a printer, scanner, camera, whatever - it doesn't matter really.
Without pre-installation, only technically proficient end-users will attempt to install it. As another poster said, one way to get the community involved is to see if it could be installed (preferably dual-bootable) on existing hardware such as phones, tablets, netbooks etc. The most obvious target would be Android-running devices, but even if a very good webOS implementation was available via that route, we'd *still* only see 1% of end-users installing it.
Funnily enough, I did the exact opposite this year - I put Android (CyanogenMod 7) on my firesale HP TouchPad and now I barely boot into webOS (mainly because of the dearth of apps - it can take a year or more to build up the catalogue...HP gave it 47 days before pulling the hardware).