Featured, News, Opinion/Editorials, webOS

HP, Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say [Opinion]

By: Rich Dunbar, 9/16/2011 1:09 pm | 43 comments

It’s amazing how we grow and mature as human beings. During my tenure here on earth one of the more important lessons I have learned is simply “Say what you mean and mean what you say”. It’s way too easy in a moment of high emotion or intense pressure to say something you don’t really mean and then have to deal with the consequences and expectations as a result of putting your mouth in motion before you put your brain in gear [preach it brother! - Ed].

I want to relate this lesson to HP and the webOS roller-coaster we have ridden over the last 15 months or so. I realize HP is not an individual but rather a multi-billion dollar international corporation and that an organization doesn’t make decisions like an individual person does. Their massive size however should be something that protects them from the “alligator mouth” syndrome. Unfortunately that has not been the case and too many times in the last year we (webOS users/developers/fans) have heard someone from the highest levels say things that clearly turned out to not be the case. Here are a few notable statements (represented to the best of my memory).

HP did not purchase Palm to get into the smartphone business.
HP is doubling down on webOS.
webOS is going to have a place at the cool kids table.
HP is in it for the long haul, this is a marathon not a sprint.
From this point forward we won’t announce devices until they are ready to ship within weeks instead of months.
HP is committed to the success of webOS.
We are open to licensing webOS.
We are open to licensing webOS, but only to a special kind of partner who is committed to being uniquely aligned with our goals concerning webOS.
HP is immediately halting support for webOS devices including the TouchPad and smartphones.
We view webOS as a viable, commercial web development platform… But I don’t think we have been loud enough. We have not talked about our intentions with webOS enough.

The last statement is the most recent and interestingly enough I think the opposite is true. Too much has been said that hasn’t been accurate. Being a critical thinker I try to figure out what the possibilities are in situations such as these. It seems to me we have a few options to consider. Let’s take a look at them.

The statements were lies intended to hide their true intentions with regard to webOS.
The statements were made in ignorance by those who don’t understand webOS and/or the current mobile marketplace.
The statements were made with the best of intentions but failed to be executed properly due to internal issues with vision, planning, management, carrier relations, marketing and communication.

Which is it? Which is worse? I’m certain I don’t have a complete answer for those questions, but I suspect it is some combination of all the possibilities. Some were likely made to appease the community or shareholders although they knew they weren’t quite true when said. Some were obviously made in ignorance not understanding the mobile market and all the factors needed to be successful. Most were likely made with the best intentions but failed on multiple levels of execution for various reasons.

So what should HP do now? That is a very hard question to answer. They have squandered whatever trust they may have had with most of the current developers and long time userbase. Furthermore, they have given ample reason for any significant Enterprise customer to be wary of committing time, money, and effort to anything webOS related because there is no way to be certain which way the ship is heading.

Some things, though, are clear if HP hopes to salvage any kind of credibility at all.

First they need to learn how to communicate a clear plan of what they really intend to do with webOS. That communication doesn’t need to come from the Chairman of the Board or the CEO. It needs to come from someone who understands webOS, its remaining community of developers and users and is still trusted to say what they mean and mean what they say. Someone like Phil McKinney or Richard Kerris would be ideal and simply have the board and top level execs affirm that person as the authoritative voice of/for webOS.

Second they need to pull out all the stops and find a hardware partner for consumer devices NOW, get it announced and have at least some version of a public roadmap to build consumer and developer interest.

Third, IF they really intend to build and market the Enyo framework as a true cross platform web/mobile development tool, they need to get whatever engineering resources together and committed to making that available and simple (see appsbar as an example). An updated Ares environment would be a great way to go with options to develop with drag and drop or full text based development capability. When a given application is complete, have a series of check boxes to select for application packaging and submission to include webOS, iOS, Android, WP7/8, BlackBerry, Windows, and even Mac.

Lastly, IF they can do all three of those things they need to make sure they stay the course making minor corrections as needed and communicate them properly and clearly all along the way. IF they can do that, webOS might have another opportunity for success. I personally hope they can as I am a hopelessly optimistic evangelist for all things webOS.

As usual…the ball is in HP’s court. Question is, do they know what to do with it?

About Rich Dunbar

Rich is Sr. Editor at webOSroundup and mobileRoundup as well as a husband, father of 4, webOS Ambassador and webOS Developer who loves all things webOS and Harley Davidson. You can find him on Twitter as @RichDunbar

View all posts by Rich Dunbar →

Anonymous

I don’t think HP knows what to do with webOS at all. I am also quite sure that they neither care nor listen to the webOS community. Sure there are good people in HP who do care and listen, but they lack the visibility ad clout to affect the way HP works. It appears to me that HP is hell bent on amputating ad burning all the parts of itself I am even the least bit interested in.
Anonymous

i have been a fan of webOS for a long time and I still am, but HP has destroyed everything about webOS. People won’t want to buy it because HP has no clue how to play the game. Its like they try to fit a circle into a square and then give up cause it won’t fit.

one of my teachers would say this is janked up, another one which I think to be real true is “HP hasn’t seen the football since the kickoff”
Anonymous

Well spoken, Rich. I would like to see ALL of the executives sit down and demonstrate that they are on the same page, though. Even a seemingly awesome guy like McKinney, by himself , would not assuage my fears. I want a round-table conference where McKinney and DeWitt, on up to the old Ah-Poe-teek-er himself sit down and lay it all out. No shortcuts. No excuses.
Scotland

Good article – could not have said it better myself. This is a fair assessment of the situation. Though you mention internal communications in #3, I’d say it deserves it’s own point. I’d say the main reason on the mixed messages is just HP’s plain size/bureaucracy – not all the personnel are on the same page. What we are seeing now is that HP is basically flying by the seat of their pants – upper management made a hasty decision to shift strategy (w/o consulting the impacted organizations) and now the rest of the org is scrambling to come up with an alternate plan.

Though I agree it makes sense for HP to turn the Enyo framework into a true cross platform development framework, if they have any hope of getting licensees/devices/users on the platform, then they need to give up only having Enyo/Mojo as their ONLY development framework – they need to commit to an Android player. Given the current uncertainty and how far they are behind in the apps race, they need to give up on the idea of their own development APIs ever gaining critical mass. The alternative is for webOS to die a slow death (a la OS/2 once they did not add win32 application apis in the mid-90′s when Windows 95 was released). If HP was to announce a roadmap (for both tablets and phones) with an Android player, then they might have a shot at getting licensees (and users) on board. Though lots of users and press love webOS, the lack of apps (along with non-competitive HW) has been hindering adoption. With licensing, the non-competitive HW, in theory, would be addressed; HP needs a strategy to address the apps gap and an Android player is the only short term option available.

I don’t see an Enterprise-only strategy for a mobile OS as being successful for webOS or any other mobile OS. Blackberry is a perfect example – despite having a strong incumbent position in this space, they have been steadily losing share in this space to Android and iOS. If a strong incumbent player cannot hold their share, then there is little chance for a newcomer like webOS. I forsee that business will flock to VMWare’s new solution assuming it is priced reasonably. Securing Mobile devices (and associated data) is becoming a bigger issue considering their burgeoning capabilities.
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/09/samsung-boosts-vmware-plan-to-virtualize-android-phones-tablets.ars

Pgovotsos

Actually, OS/2 _did_ have win32s support. It worked so well that win32 apps on OS/2′s preemptive multi-tasking ran smoother than on Win95. Like everything else, i think it came down to marketing. IBM was able to get a decent corporate base, but they never successfully competed with Microsoft for the consumer’s hearts. And, of course, like webOS, a paucity of necessary applications only accelerated it’s demise.

Scotland

Yes, good point that OS/2 did have win32s support. But I guess my point was that the situation was similar. Though OS/2 ran win16 and win32s apps (there weren’t actually that many win32s apps), it lacked native OS/2 apps and, once Windows95 was released, application developers began targeting that API as the successor to the win16 apps they had been writing for Windows 3.1 (the dominant operating system/environment at the time). IBM’s decision not to allow Windows95 (win32c) apps run on OS/2 sealed its fate (OS/2 was only able to run outdated apps written for Windows 3.1). OS/2 had a fair installed base at the time (estimated in the millions) but slowly declined in share from that point forward.

I recall that Jon Rubenstein was asked about Rimm’s decision to include the Android player on the Playbook and whether HP might pursue a similar strategy for webOS. His answer was, in effect, that he didn’t feel that it was the right strategy at that point. I would argue that, given all the uncertainty around webOS right now, that it is the only strategy that will ensure webOS some ongoing relevance in the marketplace. Without the tablet and phone legs for the chair, I would doubt we will see an explosion of webOS apps following the release of webOS printers. Releasing Enyo as a cross-platform API might bring more apps ultimately (assuming there are webOS devices) but it also ensures that there are no webOS specific apps – webOS will still have fewer apps and the apps that are were previously unique to webOS will then be available on other platforms.

The good news on the Android player strategy is that a lot of the pieces are open-source (Java, the dalvik virtual machine) and they already run on the same ARM chips that webOS uses. As I argue above, I think one of the few remaining ways to break the logjam of uncertainty around webOS is to announce this change in strategy. Otherwise, without an announcement of a major licensee soon, it seems likely that webOS is going to fade into obscurity.

http://twitter.com/nhavar Michael Ross Havard

Seeing those three points listed like that makes me realize what a battle HP could have going forward with some of these lawsuits. They have to prove that they didn’t mislead investors, but in order to do that they have to either prove that their senior leadership was ignorant of product direction OR that they didn’t understand the market they were getting into. Doing either of those is a huge hit to their credibility and puts any direction by the current management team in question. Investors are going to ask wonder how they can trust a company that can’t communicate effectively or that doesn’t do their research before getting into a new market.

Raun

Incompetence doesn’t equate to intent. I think this is all boils down to the two month window just prior to the touchpad launch. The only thing for certain is the incompetence.

http://www.facebook.com/sweetgreggo Gregory Gammill

All I wanted was a Pre3. When I got my Pre in June 2009 my first thought was “I like the form factor, just with it was built a little more solid and had a bigger screen.” I thought it would be released the next year but no. The Pre Plus came and was the same size. The Pre2 came and was built more solid but again the same size. FINALLY the phone I have been waiting for over 2 years for, the phone that Palm should have released in June 2009 to give them a fighting chance, my dream phone, the Pre3 has been released!

And… HP pulls the plug on mobile devices and will only sell the phone over seas. W. T. F.
Anonymous

HP’s decision making has been horrendous. They had such neat plans like porting WebOS to x86…which if you have seen the Windows 8 Dev. Preview is EXACTLY what Microsoft is doing with Windows. WebOS is built perfectly for that type of environment. If the platform is to survive one of two things have to happen. Find a hardware partner like yesterday! Realize you are starting from 0 and sign up anybody that will take WebOS (gee that sounds a lot like what Android did) OR just open source everything already! I long for the day where I can go to a store buy a great Android phone, then wipe it and install what I want on it (in this case WebOS).

Its overly depressing how HP had several successful, proven business plans to learn from and they balked at all of them and failed.

To top things off I was just able to score a TouchPad and using it along wide my Pre+ has just made me more sad that no new hardware (or even a software development path) will be with us in the foreseeable future :-(

Deane

Have faith HP has been around since the 1930′s so I am sure they have some rabbit they will pull out of their WebOS hat.

Anonymous

I won’t be happy until Leo is no longer the CEO or webOS is owned by another company.
Anonymous

I won’t be happy until Leo is no longer the CEO or webOS is owned by another company.
Pandamonia

I think the reason for the incongruent messages is that the HP CEO and the WebOS division were on different pages. I really don’t think Leo had any investment in WebOS. If you take his comments alone, he clearly shows not only a lack of knowledge of what WebOS could do, but also an indifference to it. It was clear very early that it wasn’t part of his strategy to include WebOS in any of his plans. I think he inherited the WebOS aquisition and the previous CEO’s strategy and gave it just enough rope to be able to call it a failure at the first opportunity and then pull the plug. Furthermore, I think had he not had shareholders looking over his shoulder, he would’ve pulled the plug on the software portion of WebOS too. I think its the shareholders that are holding him accountable to get something out of the investment. No matter what the reason though, I think there is unanimous support behind the notion that Leo totally botched the whole affair, and acted in a reckless manner. In my opinion his investors are going to win the class action lawsuit.
Lance

Like a kid dumped by a girlfriend, get over it. Plenty of other fish in the sea.

Tonymac32

Like the uppity unreachable and snobbish iOS, the homely Blackberry and the street-walking Android. Bravo sir. The first is nigh useless for business, the second is poorly made and all but dead, and the final one has more ridiculous bugs than windows itself.

Adaisguy

It sounds like your describing webOS/Pre/TP.
Adaisguy

*you’re

Anonymous

Wow, what a helpful individual you are, welcome to webOSroundup. Now you can leave.

Yes, there are plenty of other fish in the sea but if my prime choice of Mahi Mahi suddenly died out and I was left with Cod or Halibut, etc, I would not be happy about it (I know I took this in a different direction than the phrase normally implies but it gets the point across).

webOS is truly a great operating system. No it’s not perfect but it can’t be disputed that the software is at the very least, competitive with the other OS offerings and to many on this site, it is superior in almost every way.

Thank you for your trol…I mean time.

Ggiffin

Excellent editorial. I think that HP’s issues have become much deeper. Recent events indicate to me that HP has lost its way. This means that they have lost their direction and this is more than not knowing where you are going but also forgetting where you are coming from. Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard would be very disappointed. This is a company with humble beginnings that has excelled at making innovative devices – many of them handheld. 35 years ago, as a young engineering student, we were all clamouring after the first HP scientific calculators. Today, I have an app on my Pre that emulates one. What has been happening recently indicates that they have forgotten this and are scrambling without a plan or regard for the company’s history. These problems fall squarely on the Board of Directors, who themselves have forgotten their job, only to become caught up in the short term chase for quarterly results and shareholder value? Can’t wait to read the Harvard business school case they’re going to write about HP in a few years.

Adaisguy

I disagree with your premise that HP has lost focus. Although the implementation was horrible, they have decided to abandon the low margin business of PCs and concentrate solely on solutions for enterprise. They want to become the next IBM/Oracle/SAP. I would argue that is why they hired a software guy to be CEO.

Without a doubt the transition has been ugly, especially for the stock – since investors are uncertain about HP’s future earnings (it’s enterprise services operates at a lower margin than IBM). But if they can pull it off and successfully transform themselves into a higher margin services company, now may have been the best time to buy HPQ (not that I am buying but have shorted it in the past and will be watching it closely)

jbrandonf

Margins may have been low but what was the profitability of that division?

Adaisguy

I’m looking at HP purely from an investor’s point of view, and the most important metric that an investor looks at when evaluating a large technology company is gross margins (key metrics vary between industries – same store sales is the most important to retail, the growth rate to smaller tech companies). The PSG of HP revenue’s declined 3% year over year and had margins of 5.9%. Margins for it’s storage, servers and networking group are 13% and 19.4% for its software group. IBM, for example, has a margin of 17%. The profitability does not matter as much to a tech investor – but the cash flow is nice for the company.

All in all, this could be a very good move for HP. IBM has grown significantly since it spun off it computer division to Lenovo. Since 2005, the year IBM sold it’s PC division, IBM stock is up 77%, while HP has lagged at 12%. With the future of PCs cloudy (rise of the tablet, low margins on cheap PCs, and Apple dominating high margin sales) a change of focus to enterprise/software may be great for HP – even if that leaves webOS out for consumers.

jbrandonf

Great comment. I still didn’t read that the division wasn’t profitable though. And why do you say that profits don’t matter to a tech investor?
The only reason I ask if it’s still profitable is because it seems silly to spin off a division while it’s still profitable, when the company can use those profits for investing and developing its long term strategy.
Adaisguy

It’s not that profits don’t matter, but when investors compare large tech companies to each other, they primarily look at it’s margin. Apple has a huge margin and is one the best performing tech stocks. RIM just announced lower margins (and a bunch of other bad results) and is being punished. Profits always matter, but margins are more important to this industry.

I believe the PSG was profitable, but that is not the only factor management looks at in these situations. Companies routinely spin off profitable parts of their business to focus on other divisions. A couple of years ago Altria, the Tobacco company, spun off it’s international division so that the new company could compete better internationally. Kraft is in the process of splitting itself into two separate companies and has seen gains has the market has lagged. Even HP spun off it’s measurement division to Aglient Corp in 1999.

A lot of times management believes that investors are not giving it’s company credit for all of it’s different businesses because it is harder to value a company that has a bunch of business to a company that just does one thing. For example, Coke makes drinks and that about it. Pepsi has drinks, snacks, restaurant and a bunch or other businesses. How do investors compare them? Which one is better? When a company spins off divisions the value of the stock will usually go up, in essence the sum of the parts is greater that the whole. And increases in the stock prices is why companies exist for the investor, which are the owners. Activist investors will often try to get board seats on the company just to try to break it up and “unlock it’s value”.

This really makes sense for HP right now. Concentrate on the higher margin businesses, spin off the lower margin and declining PSG, but keep a large investment in the new company (probably 15-30%). If HP can pull it off, watch for their stock to gain back the 50% it lost this year in a year or two. The market could have made a huge mistake recently, or investors could be displaying a lack of confidence in HP being able to pull it off.
eid

You bring up good investor points. And I actually do have some HP stock. But HP’s execution was terrible. IBM sold its PC and laptop business to Lenovo which was a no name company from China back then. But IBM pc, Thinkpad etc owners knew that that it was a complete sell including engineers, support staff so it had a chance to work. That decision turned out well since Lenovo kept making quality products and now has a significant market in the US and international markets (esp china). In contrast, HP said, yeah, we’re getting rid of the Personal systems, webOS and we don’t have a buyer or licensee to take over the business. Instead they’ll explore how to get rid of the PS group. The timing of this especially knowing Touchpad (the webOS jewel) just launched less than 2 months before that screamed out to the world that HP didn’t have the guts to stay in the consumer or even enterprise mobile market. IBM sold off its systems from a position of relative strength. HP made its decision from weakness and ignorance . By the way the HP executives said within 2 weeks they would have a plan for PS group (I don’t remember if they also included webOS). And still nothing. They have taken out full page ads saying they THINK they will spin off PSG but don’t worry- keep buying HP. Tech analysts are lumping the HP board with Yahoo board for the worst in the tech industry. That’s great company to keep! And having a Board director going out to do damage control while muzzling your incompetent CEO is a rare thing. The Board of directors usually operate in the background for most normal companies.
I usually don’t support class action lawsuits but I’m inclined to support the ones against HP.
Adaisguy

Completely agree with you. Like I said in my first reply, HP’s execution is horrible and that is reflected in the stock. But look at the last 3 CEOs they have had and the company has been a soap opera. I’ve actually been shorting the stock since Hurd left but covered after the last quarter’s results.

PalmOn

Looks like another slow (dead) news day in webos-land. The problem now is that webos is tainted. Nobody wants to buy a tainted OS. There are other OS’s out there. So you won’t be able to flick cards around on your screen. Big deal. Let me tell you from experience, switching to android is no big deal. And, there are many benefits as well. I have been a webos fan for a long time now. But come on. How many companies need to fail with it before the message becomes clear? Any company will be made to look bad–like there is something wrong with them, if they were to now buy, or even license webos. No company today would even want to hint at expressing interest in webos. Look what happened with Samsung. They had to go on the defensive.
L’angelo Mysterioso

What if HP was spinning-off PSG in order to circumvent licensing regulations? I believe Palm did the same thing (years ago, for the same reason), but were never able to pull it off due to lack of capital. I believe HP is now in the same position w/webOS, and a former Palm CEO, Todd Bradley, is a major player w/HP last I heard. And HP now has webOS divided into a ‘software-group’ (as part of the OST branch of HP), and a ‘hardware group’ (as part of PSG). Once the spin-off of PSG is complete, HP’s OST group can begin licensing webOS to outside parties, while making sweet deals to the gang building the hardware over at PSG.

This is essentially the position that Google is now in with the coming acquisition of Motorola, minus the legal hassles, since they license the Android platform for free unless I am wildly off base.

jbrandonf

Hopeful until the end, huh?
Adaisguy

In all honesty, webOS was a drop in the bucket of the PSG. It’s demise was laid out in one sentence of a press release made by HP. I really don’t think that they would spin-off a huge part of the company so that it could license it. Plus, when Palm did it, it was because it continued to make the hardware. HP has already said it is not interested in developing webOS hardware anymore so there would be no conflict.

Danar

Another way of putting it; “Constipation of the brain and diarrhea of the mouth”
Pgovotsos

One thing HP needs to do if they are serious about Enyo is to open source it. There are developers who have already written cross platform apps with Enyo (Ed Finkler and Spaz come immediately to mind), but can’t release them beyond webOS because of the license.
Dalspartan

After waiting patiently for TouchPad and Pre3, I have a WP7 phone (HTC) and going to get an iPad2 now. I won’t be purchasing an HP product again. Lexmark printer in my near future. If I can’t trust the company’s words, how can I trust the product?
http://profiles.google.com/anayagamingllc Jason Buffalo

Interesting point but the announcement with Enyo been a Web Development Tool, pretty much also mean the End for WebOS, i did not go with WebOS for Enyo but for it’s easy handling and Multitasking, that is something one can not carry over to the other Platforms, But all this WebOS drama we had in the End was a simple failure from HP not knowing what the Hell they wanted to do in the first Place and this will also hurt them in the Future as Well, a company needs like anybody in life an idea what they want to be in the future and HP clearly has no clue.
Anonymous

Wow. HP’s problems are much bigger than webOS. What they have communicated is uncertainty regarding their overall corporate business plan, especially in regards to PSG. One month later they are still trying to spin things and untangle the spaghetti from that earnings conference call. If you look at the FB page maintained by @BrynaAtHP:disqus and you’ll see that she’s continuing to explain that HP will continue to make printers and PCs. If you are on the email list for HP’s SMB, you received this email on the 14th with the subject line: “We Are Still the #1 Personal Computer Company,” with including statements: HP’s Personal Systems Group is the #1 PC Maker on the planet and that won’t change. I can assure you our future is brighter than ever…. HP’s Personal Systems Group is the #1 Personal Computer Company. Today & Tomorrow.” They have a communications and coordination mess that goes way beyond webOS. In a word, they are the anti-Apple…like a photographic negative. I am glad I do not work for them.
KarenL

Sadly, because of “golden parachutes” all CEO’s negotiate in their hiring contract, HP’s CEO, Leo, will do just fine, if let go. Isn’t it time for these CEO’s contracts to state they must actually make a positive contribution to their company before they can collect any bonuses? What incentive is there for them not to fail and/or take the company down. No such thing as “too big to fail”.
tt92618

The ‘announcement’ that Enyo is the most important part of WebOS is a bit like arguing that ExtJS or any other application framework is the most important part of iOS, Windows 7, etc. It is, with even a little critical thought, an absolutely ludicrous statement. Making it is tantamount to arguing that the most important thing you got out of your multi-billions of dollars in investment was a web development framework. If the executives at HP seriously consider that to be the case, then the shareholders should rise up en mass and can the whole lot of them, because they clearly haven’t got a clue what they are doing and they are burning a lot of shareholder value on the patently ridiculous. There is no way HP will every recoup the money they have spent on this by treating it like its some sort of fancy web development framework.

Enyo, by the way, really is a really cool application framework; it is one of the most impressive web frameworks I have ever seen, and I write such frameworks (and associated web applications) for a living. But divorced from the rest of WebOS – the actual OS kernal and all of the enhancements made to WebKit etc. for running on a device – then Enyo is nothing but an application development framework and that is NOT an impressive thing. And in that space, although its nifty, it isn’t ground breaking and there are lots and lots of competitors.

A web development framework is not a platform; you cannot monetize it in a way that allows you to make a lot of money from it. Really, at that point, it is just software, and not the most profitable software.

HP squandered the only opportunity that would have made money for them on this: an eco-system composed of a great operating system, supported by a great applications development framework, with a great software distribution model that would make it attractive to developers, and great hardware. HP had the makings of all of these and it was the hardware that fell down. They blew it, pure and simple, and then didn’t have the courage or vision to stay in the game and make it right. So instead of eventually getting to great, they have trashed the whole thing and will now have trouble ever regaining even a fraction of what they dumped into it.

This was a leadership failure more than anything else.
tt92618

The ‘announcement’ that Enyo is the most important part of WebOS is a bit like arguing that ExtJS or any other application framework is the most important part of iOS, Windows 7, etc. It is, with even a little critical thought, an absolutely ludicrous statement. Making it is tantamount to arguing that the most important thing you got out of your multi-billions of dollars in investment was a web development framework. If the executives at HP seriously consider that to be the case, then the shareholders should rise up en mass and can the whole lot of them, because they clearly haven’t got a clue what they are doing and they are burning a lot of shareholder value on the patently ridiculous. There is no way HP will every recoup the money they have spent on this by treating it like its some sort of fancy web development framework.

Enyo, by the way, really is a really cool application framework; it is one of the most impressive web frameworks I have ever seen, and I write such frameworks (and associated web applications) for a living. But divorced from the rest of WebOS – the actual OS kernal and all of the enhancements made to WebKit etc. for running on a device – then Enyo is nothing but an application development framework and that is NOT an impressive thing. And in that space, although its nifty, it isn’t ground breaking and there are lots and lots of competitors.

A web development framework is not a platform; you cannot monetize it in a way that allows you to make a lot of money from it. Really, at that point, it is just software, and not the most profitable software.

HP squandered the only opportunity that would have made money for them on this: an eco-system composed of a great operating system, supported by a great applications development framework, with a great software distribution model that would make it attractive to developers, and great hardware. HP had the makings of all of these and it was the hardware that fell down. They blew it, pure and simple, and then didn’t have the courage or vision to stay in the game and make it right. So instead of eventually getting to great, they have trashed the whole thing and will now have trouble ever regaining even a fraction of what they dumped into it.

This was a leadership failure more than anything else.
Kallisti

I don’t think it is that easy, talking about communicating. I don’t believe they are allowed to say what they are thinking. My take on it is that it boils down to EP. The contract that Elevation Partners wrote when selling Palm to HP must have included clauses obliging HP to release three phones and a tablet by a certain schedule, probably including that the tablet and at least one phone had to be released in the US. That’s why they rushed the TP out the door for a July 1st release.

And with that said I believe they are also contractually obligated to continue webOS development for a certain time (or until something happens). Seen from that perspective most of their actions seem pretty logical. They cannot be perceived in trying to sabotage their commitment to the contract by actually admitting that they are only doing it to avoid being sued by EP or Ruby or someone. “Look, even our CEO has publicly stated that this was a marathon, he presented the TP on stage! It’s not our fault, it just didn’t work out.. but we are fulfilling our part of the deal”. EP must have written some nasty things into the contract or they are just not prepared to take the additional PR problems of admitting that they are only doing it because of contractual obligations.

It would have been easy for them to do it right. They should have doubled the amount of people developing webOS, it’s crazy that they apparently were not able to work on 2.x while developing 3.x. They have been doing as little as possible to fulfil some clauses, that’s all. Which leads me to conclude that, bar a miracle outside of HPs control or interest, webOS will continue to be marginally supported, going through the motions, until they don’t need to any more and then silently closed down.
Abe

Wow! Some of these replies are just as long as the article or even longer! That shows how committed the webOS community is into HP fixing this!

What the heck HP?
http://twitter.com/joe_dorn Joe Dorn

What a lack of vision. I hope someone swoops in and saves WebOS.
EddieDFW

Thanks Rich…totally agree. I’ve hung in there with hopes of webOS moving forward with someone else. However, with HP’s announcement today of giving pink slips to webOS employees pretty much is the FINAL nail in the coffin. If someone else does pick up webOS, I seriously doubt those employees that were let go would chance it again. I’m angry and sad. So, I’ll wait for the Windows 8 phones to appear.

HP, Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say [Opinion]

About Rich Dunbar

Popular Posts