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Move over, Android. On Wednesday, Hewlett-Packard laid out a plan to make its webOS platform open source, in an effort to replicate some of Google's successful strategy in getting its open source OS adopted.
HP said that it was aiming to make the source code available under an open source license by September. Accompanying the open source announcement, HP said it was now releasing versions 1.0 and 2.0 of its developers' tool for the platform, Enyo.
'Write Once, Run Anywhere'
One particular feature of Enyo could make it appealing to developers -- the "write once, run anywhere" ability to write a single app that works on mobile devices and in Web browsers, for iOS and Android platforms in addition to webOS. Silverlight and Flash will be supported through plug-ins.
Bill Veghte, executive vice president and chief strategy officer at HP, said in a statement that the open sourcing of webOS was "a decisive step toward meeting our goal of accelerating the platform's development" and making it part of an ecosystem of Web apps.
The source code for webOS, including Enyo, will be made available under the Apache License, Version 2.0, which is the same license under which Android is available. This means that there is already an acceptance of this licensing approach among a range of manufacturers, carriers and developers.
The source code will be made available in monthly steps, culminating in the full release by September. An open webOS beta will be available in August, to be followed by the full open webOS 1.0 the next month.
HP obtained webOS in its $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm in 2010, but the resulting webOS products, including the Palm Pre smartphone and the TouchPad tablet, have had meager sales. As of August, the products are no longer being manufactured, and the company announced last month... newsfactor.com »
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 Компания Hewlett-Packard официально сообщила о важном решении в отношении мобильной операционной системы webOS, приобретенной вкупе с прочими активами Palm в прошлом году.
Компания Hewlett-Packard официально сообщила о важном решении в отношении мобильной операционной системы webOS, приобретенной вкупе с прочими активами Palm в прошлом году. Решено перевести эту достаточно перспективную программную платформу в категорию open-source, иными словами, открыть ее исходный it.siteua.org » | Hewlett-Packard said Friday that the computing hardware giant has decided to contribute its webOS mobile software platform to the open-source community. HP obtained the rights to webOS when the company acquired Palm for $1.2 billion in April 2010.
Hewlett-Packard initially had high hopes for webOS as an operating system that it could run side-by-side on the company's next-generation Windows desktop PCs and laptops. Following the departure of CEO Leo Apotheker and the demise of HP's webOS-based media tablet, however, the company has decided that the best way to enable webOS to evolve is to fully engage the resources of the open-source community.
"WebOS is the only platform designed from the ground up to be mobile, cloud-connected and scalable," said HP CEO Meg Whitman on Friday. "By contributing this innovation, HP unleashes the creativity of the open-source community to advance a new generation of applications and devices."
This is an exit strategy for HP and not a bad one at that, noted Al Hilwa, director of applications software development at IDC. "It throws a bone to the small but passionate community that appears to be interested in evolving webOS," Hilwa said Friday.
An Unwinnable Battle
Earlier this year, industry observers had expected HP to recoup part of its $1.2 billion investment in Palm by selling the webOS platform to another company. Though some analysts viewed Amazon as a potential webOS buyer, the online retail giant adopted a customized version of Android instead to enable its Kindle Fire tablet customers to access selected apps from Google's Android Market.
Hilwa believes that HP ultimately realized that the company could not use webOS to build a top-tier application and content ecosystem that could compete with well entrenched mobile rivals such as Apple and Google.
"For mobile devices, iOS and Android have an early lead, with Microsoft and RIM on their... newsfactor.com » |
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