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HP’s Rahul Sood: “Don’t Misinterpret Me!” (UPDATED)

By: , 9/13/2010 7:03 pm | 15 comments

You gotta feel for Rahul Sood, HP’s CTO for Gaming and Advanced Computing.

He has become the torch-bearing champion for webOS users far and wide (all due respect to ReleaseMyPre). Having an entire community hang on your every word can have its drawbacks, however…

Earlier today, Rahul tweeted the statement that users won’t need to beg developers to make apps for webOS “if HP Palm can execute on the hardware roadmap over the next 12 months.” He even went on to add:

“Everyone will want in once the presentation of hardware is in front of them. even the defectors will want to own a webOS device. I’m being realistic. Even provided a realistic time frame. more apps won’t create more demand. better hardware will.”

Of course, before expectations ran too high, he knocked them down a couple pegs:

“… don’t expect anything soon, please stop asking ‘when’ — i’d rather be straight with you. these things take time…”

Well after a comment like that, the webOS community perpared to hurl themselves from the proverbial cliff (translated: pondered buying an Android device). Rahul hastened to respond:

“[Please] don’t misinterpret my tweet [from] earlier. Will explain in blog!”

Like we said – you gotta feel for the guy. A few tweets and suddenly he’s in the middle of a firestorm… now he feels compelled to write a whole blog post to explain himself!

If we can chime in here, we’d rather have some straight talk than smoke and mirrors. We admire Mr. Sood for his honesty… and yeah, we’ll continue hanging on his every word. That said Mr. Sood, we feel it takes more than just a “if you build it, they will come” mentality when it comes to gaining public mindshare and developer support. The latter can be obtained right now, with little risk to them… just ask Rovio Mobile, the creators of Angry Birds!  Speaking metaphorically in a broader sense, if awesome hardware is the hull, then a strong hype machine is the mast and media consumption ecosystem the rudder. All of these must firmly be in place to sail this ship past, say … a 0.2% gain in market share? Just sayin’…

UPDATE! True to his word, Rahul has posted a clarification of his tweets on his personal blog. They read as follows. Read and draw your own conclusions.

You will certainly see products released over the next 12 months, some sooner than others, and some which are very exciting to me. The stuff that excites me the most are the new form factors. Now, when I said “over the next 12 months,” I really mean over the next 12 months. Not at the end of 12 months, not tomorrow…but over the next 12 months we will see the makings of a new portfolio and the beginning of something great again. There is no predefined window of opportunity in the technology business; lack of innovation is the only thing that closes the window.

[Source: Twitter]

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About David Baxter

David is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of webOSroundup. When not toiling away at WOR he is usually with his family, at church, building a website of some kind or another, or playing a video game. @davidbbaxter
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  • http://www.facebook.com/adam.blakeney Adam Blakeney

    HPalm is on the clock for the current Pre/Pixi owners… But they might not be targeting them.

    Since that marketshare is so small, they may be targeting the Evo and iPhone crowd that will be replacing their phones in a year. Us poor Pre users will have to stick-it-out or jump ship. Unfortunately, there isn't enough of us to jump ship for it to matter.

    • Dan_Ramirez

      A good point. All about timing, isn't it?

  • http://www.facebook.com/adam.blakeney Adam Blakeney

    HPalm is on the clock for the current Pre/Pixi owners… But they might not be targeting them.

    Since that marketshare is so small, they may be targeting the Evo and iPhone crowd that will be replacing their phones in a year. Us poor Pre users will have to stick-it-out or jump ship. Unfortunately, there isn't enough of us to jump ship for it to matter.

    • Dan_Ramirez

      A good point. All about timing, isn't it?

  • David

    I'm interested in what he has to say in his blog tomorrow. VZW has hurt my admiration of my Pre Plus with the whole update fiasco. I'm really looking forward to a new phone from HPalm.

  • David

    I'm interested in what he has to say in his blog tomorrow. VZW has hurt my admiration of my Pre Plus with the whole update fiasco. I'm really looking forward to a new phone from HPalm.

  • cyber4444

    YEP! i read about his retwit on twitter about, webOS community been awesome, & that the tech-media,shouldn't take his words out of context. Well,it been said, just be specific & let us know tomorrow in your blog post.

  • cyber4444

    YEP! i read about his retwit on twitter about, webOS community been awesome, & that the tech-media,shouldn't take his words out of context. Well,it been said, just be specific & let us know tomorrow in your blog post.

  • Levi Wallach

    It's obvious what a huge fan of WebOS and Palm Rahul is. As much as we complain that we are waiting and waiting and all that we get is "we can't tell you much except there will be new hardware at some point and it will be very impressive," it must be equally hard, if not harder, for Rahul. Think about it, as a huge fan, but one privy to many of the details about this new hardware, he has to constantly hold his tongue, when he probably wants to shout from the rooftops about how amazing this new hardware is. You think he likes hiding this stuff from fellow fans? But so it goes, and unfortunately it's incredibly easy for things to be misinterpreted when people have zero other info to go on and have basically made things up based on the interpretation of one or two words, or word order in a sentence, etc. That's what happens in an information vacuum. Not saying there isn't some valid reason for this vacuum, but vacuums can also be deadly ;-)

  • Levi Wallach

    It's obvious what a huge fan of WebOS and Palm Rahul is. As much as we complain that we are waiting and waiting and all that we get is "we can't tell you much except there will be new hardware at some point and it will be very impressive," it must be equally hard, if not harder, for Rahul. Think about it, as a huge fan, but one privy to many of the details about this new hardware, he has to constantly hold his tongue, when he probably wants to shout from the rooftops about how amazing this new hardware is. You think he likes hiding this stuff from fellow fans? But so it goes, and unfortunately it's incredibly easy for things to be misinterpreted when people have zero other info to go on and have basically made things up based on the interpretation of one or two words, or word order in a sentence, etc. That's what happens in an information vacuum. Not saying there isn't some valid reason for this vacuum, but vacuums can also be deadly ;-)

  • Brian

    I admire Mr Sood for hinting about what HP is up to and hope he understands the fervor that the WEBos community has. I'm sure by now he also knows that the Pre itself isn't the best piece of hardware out there and with a top tier device WEBos will shine. I also understand he can't say too much about the next generation of hardware, that is big business, although when I listen to him I sense he wants to say more.

    What I HOPE for is that the WEBos community takes a deep breath and doesn't attack him. It is counter productive and will only cause him to pull back on the information. I am a day one adopter and would like to have a top of the line phone like many out there, but I would rather they take more time and "get it right"

    I am more concerned that the development community grows. My hardware is nothing without them and I purchase as much software as I can afford. If Mr Sood is right, the wait will be worth it for myself and the community.

  • Brian

    I admire Mr Sood for hinting about what HP is up to and hope he understands the fervor that the WEBos community has. I'm sure by now he also knows that the Pre itself isn't the best piece of hardware out there and with a top tier device WEBos will shine. I also understand he can't say too much about the next generation of hardware, that is big business, although when I listen to him I sense he wants to say more.

    What I HOPE for is that the WEBos community takes a deep breath and doesn't attack him. It is counter productive and will only cause him to pull back on the information. I am a day one adopter and would like to have a top of the line phone like many out there, but I would rather they take more time and "get it right"

    I am more concerned that the development community grows. My hardware is nothing without them and I purchase as much software as I can afford. If Mr Sood is right, the wait will be worth it for myself and the community.

  • jbrandonf

    What the hell did he expect. We’ve been clamoring for MONTHS over some new hardware and I flat out refuse to believe Palm didn’t have something in the works when they were bought out.

    BUILD HYPE. I hope they’re not thinking that they’ll announce a phone and release it the next week, they need to get people excited and it seems they just don’t know how to do that.

  • jbrandonf

    What the hell did he expect. We’ve been clamoring for MONTHS over some new hardware and I flat out refuse to believe Palm didn’t have something in the works when they were bought out.

    BUILD HYPE. I hope they’re not thinking that they’ll announce a phone and release it the next week, they need to get people excited and it seems they just don’t know how to do that.

  • jbrandonf

    What the hell did he expect. We’ve been clamoring for MONTHS over some new hardware and I flat out refuse to believe Palm didn’t have something in the works when they were bought out.

    BUILD HYPE. I hope they’re not thinking that they’ll announce a phone and release it the next week, they need to get people excited and it seems they just don’t know how to do that.