With this week's news that HP is buying Palm and their webOS mobile operating system, rumors are hot that the Windows 7 HP Slate tablet is being canceled, to be replaced by a webOS powered model.
Windows 7 is a desktop OS, not a mobile OS
When Microsoft's Steve Ballmer demoed a Slate at a trade show earlier this year, both HP and Microsoft's stock fell the next day. The demo obviously didn't go that well, and anyone who's tried to run a Microsoft OS on a underpowered computer can understand why Windows 7 isn't well-suited for a resource-constrained device.
According to technology pundit, Michael Arrington, "HP is not satisfied with Windows 7 as a tablet operating system." Since Windows Phone 7 isn't production-ready and now HP owns their own highly-regarded (if not high-selling) mobile OS, it makes sense for the company to use webOS on a new version of the Slate.
Attracting developers to the webOS Slate
The key to HP's success with the Slate is attracting programming talent to develop apps for the device, especially since they've lost the entire library of Windows programs.
This will be a difficult battle for HP, since they are competing with Apple's iPhone OS and Google's Android, both with robust app markets. Windows Phone 7 also has an established community of .NET developers working on apps for that OS.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment