Submitted by Two reports about mobile operating systems, both refuted by the companies the reports were about. First, there were persistent rumours Samsung wanted to buy or license webOS from HP – the company has now stated it has absolutely no interest in doing so. Another report surfaced today, stating Intel was temporarily backing off MeeGo – Intel, too, has refuted this report, stating it remains committed to MeeGo. Coincidentally, both reports originated from DigiTimes.
DigiTimes reported earlier this week that Samsung was interested in buying webOS from HP, while also being interested in HP’s personal computer business. The reason quoted by DigiTimes was Google’s acquisition of Motorola, which was supposedly perceived as a threat to other Android phone makers. Samsung, however, has now responded, stating it has zero interest in buying webOS.
Samsung’s chief executive officer Choi Gee Sung talked to reporters at IFA in Berlin, and responded to questions about the rumoured purchasing plans. “It’s not right that acquiring an operating system is becoming a fashion,” Choi Gee Sung said (maybe someone should tell him where Android comes from, but okay, we’ll roll with it). The company will “never” pursue such a webOS deal. In fact, the company is working harder and harder on its own operating system, Bada, and since my brother owns a Bada phone, I can confirm that this under-appreciated operating system is actually pretty damn awesome – very fast and capable.
Another report from DigiTimes, published earlier today, stated that Intel was temporarily backing off MeeGo because, well, nobody gives a chocolate brick about it. Supposedly, Intel was going to focus on making hardware for Android and Windows Phone, leaving MeeGo behind. This report, too, has been refuted by Intel.
“We remain committed to MeeGo and open source, and will continue to work with the community to help develop and meet the needs of customers and end users,” an Intel spokesperson told CNET. Of course, this could still be PR-speak, but for now, it would seem Intel’s involvement with MeeGo won’t end right now.
Still, there’s no denying that both webOS and MeeGo are at the brink of death – which makes me a little sad, actually. It would seem the fight between iOS and Android (insofar you can speak of a ‘fight’ and not ‘total pwnage’) has already caused at least two almost-confirmed casualties.
Sadly, no one seems to be interested in adopting WebOS. In my opinion, WebOS should be an open source mobile OS, because it has some wonderful characteristics.
When distributed like android, it would become the Mobile OS King. The potential is assured.
Besides: Bada is really awesome. I like the Bada SDK, although i am the only one with this opinion ^^ But i think Bada will have its market share, in the low- and middle Smartphones sector.
Not sure why Web OS didn’t do better. It was launched prior to Android’s success, and there was some buzz around it as well. But at this point, I think you’d really have to do something amazing to displace IOS or android. So Amazing,that I can’t even imagine what it would be like.
WebOS wasn’t backed by a good device.
I don’t know the main complaint of the first palm pre was the keyboard. Why didn’t they just improve that. Its not rocket science. The only thing I can think of is that Palm was underfunded and lacked the resources to introduce better versions. Compare the improvement of the palm pre plus to that of the Droid 2 versus their predecessors. Motorola improved the device significantly, palm did not.
Arguably, Droid was the original good device behind Android. Sure… HTC Hero was earlier, but it was too expensive.
True. But even then they didn’t stop with good. Even the iphone would be dead if they hadn’t improved it significantly since the original release.
FYI: The Palm Pre 2 got an improved keyboard plus a much more solid build quality overall.
Yeah… and that’s pretty much it. Compare to the Original Moto Droid with the Droid 2. Palm/hp never kept up with dramatic improvement in smartphones.
No you are not the only one. I personally believe Bada’s SDK is superior when compared to Android.
Edited 2011-09-02 22:16 UTC
2.0 of the Bada SDK finally allows for multitasking?
Still waiting for the headline, “WebOS Wobbles, Falls Down”
This left me a bit confused
http://www.phonearena.com/news/South-Korea-to-develop-its-own…-sm…
If Bada opens up it could become this OS. But this all depend on Samsung. If they don’t and LG is excluded from it this OS might really happen.
It would be interesting if they build this on an existing open source platform like Meego or something.
It probably will run on Linux.
The whole project though seems a totally unnecessary kneejerk reaction to Google buying Motorola.
If they do and this thing is developed from scratch it will be terribly unnecessary duplication.
Hehe, your article almost sounds like the WP7 astroturfers: “My colleague / family member / mailman / etc. uses WP7 and says it’s the best thing since sliced bread!”
Seriously though, WebOS is not really suited for the Bada target group of low-cost smartphones.
WP7 *is* really good. I use it every day.
Yeah… i have an iPhone, but i think about swichting to wp7, because the handling its perfectly for mobile Phones .
If you’re talking about a low end phone that will be tossed into the trash with the same applications that it shipped with, then it doesn’t really matter if every vendor has its own OS. (Ditto for smartphones targetted at enthusiasts.)
But a consumer oriented smartphones, well, that’s something altogether different. Developers don’t want to port to every bloody platform and consumers don’t want to find out that their friend’s fantastic app won’t work on their phone (or, for that matter, the app that they depended upon on their old phone won’t run on their new phone).
Disclaimer: I’m a consumer, but not a normal consumer.
I have an LG Rumor Touch. It’s a feature phone rather than a smart phone but lots of J2ME apps run on it. Even more don’t, partly because the carrier has the network access parts locked down so hard.
I could spend $100 and get software to unlock it so it would have more capabilities, but I kind of like playing with it to see what it will and won’t do. So it’s more than just a phone to me, it’s a geeky toy/puzzle as well.
Maybe that market niche is too small for anyone to try to go for. (o;)
Is WebOS really gonna be dead? How unfortunate. I like diversity, it drives innovation but unfortunately it seem to drive litigations at this current juncture.
MeeGo dieing?
Where, when, how?
Asus is lunching MeeGo netbook this year (at last real Linux Distro, that will not be rejected cause of “corporate-only” approach). There are tablets in pape for it, and MeeGo will be/is used for Intels IVI.
Toooo many ppl think, that MeeGo can only be put on smartphone. MeeGo is MORE
For example, WeTab
http://wetab.mobi/en
Edited 2011-09-04 18:48 UTC
You forgot Nokia N9. I ditched my trusty Android for one of those, the N9 is just amazing! If a store near you is selling N9, please do yourself a favor and go try it!
And both ASUS and Acer (and LG?) have Meego notebooks in the pipeline, probably in out hands before October.
So I guess from now on everything DigiTimes says I will take it with lots of salt.
As far as WebOS is concerned, I believe Samsung has made the correct decision for not buying WebOS as they have their own Bada which is an excellent smartphone platform to develop for with an excellent API and SDK.
Edited 2011-09-03 04:41 UTC
When HP announced they were dropping WebOS devices they also said they were transitioning into a software focused company and that WebOS was going to be a big part of their future. They’ve publicly expressed interest in licensing it for months now. Whether they’ll be able to effectively license it will determine it’s future.
Every post about anything related to MeeGo needs at least one person to grumble about the idiocy of Nokia.
Count me in for that.
As a side note, my experience with mobile operating systems thus far have been the Motorola Cliq, which had Android 1.6 on it, was a pain to root, didn’t like Android.
Then I bought my Nokia N900. Love it! Maemo is freaking awesome, and rather than running a crap JavaVM over a Linux kernel, it actually uses Xorg and it works like a tiny Linux machine. Rooting it was as easy as running apt-get.
I was looking forward to a MeeGo phone, but Elop doesn’t even want the N9 to succeed, last I’ve read (I stopped reading up on it a while ago, it was too depressing) they were going to make it extremely difficult to even obtain one in the USA.
I just bought a Flytouch 3 10.2″ 1Ghz tablet (those cheap Chinese Android knock-offs) and it has Android 2.2 on it.
My N900 runs Android 2.3.4 better than it does! And it’s a 600mhz processor! Not to mention it’s not exactly native and is being ported.
Don’t compare N900 experience with Flytouch or any other Chinese cheap tab manufacturers. Hardware quoted is mostly not what it’s really capable of…
Amazon.de is listing the N9 at 619 EUR. Absurd but I guess if you really, really want one…
Elop going as a case study to the MBA books
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2011/08/coining-term-e…
I understand your pain, but please dont give up on N9!!
This phone is amazing! (and from what I have seen so far, Nokia is moving the more innovative parts to the symbian platform)
Thom, first HP never plan on selling webOS. From day one they talked about licensing it out. Some overzealous tech bloggers create the story that HP would sell webOS, not HP. HP wants to become a software service company and webOS is a big part of that. Yesterday HP moved moved the software portion of the webOS division out of the PSG. So webOS is not leaving the company when the PSG is spun off. Second, Samsung’s CEO said that he would never “buy” webOS. Again that is is line with what HP wanted. Samsung’s CEO never mention not licensing webOS. Please provide us with the part of his statement that said Samsung would not license it. I read his statement and checked some other tech sites. Just about everyone except you and Phonedog are covering that Samsung would not buy webOS. No one else is saying that Samsung would not license it. Not even Samsung..