Did HP Just Give WebOS ‘a Death Sentence’? - rogershaddess

As an ASCII text file project with uncertain backing, webOS has a tough road ahead of IT, analysts aforesaid happening Friday.

"This is a death sentence just an honorable Death sentence," said Avi Greengart, an analyst with Occurrent Analysis. "HP is saying, 'We'Ra washing our workforce of this but fashioning it available for anyone to spiel with as they see fit.'""

He was referring to HP's announcement Friday that it will contribute the code behind webOS to the vulnerable-root community. But the caller left a number of unanswered questions that have left experts to wonder if webOS has a future tense.

Hardly a Details

For instance, piece Horsepower said information technology would "stay on to be active" in encouraging and developing webOS, it didn't say how exactly it would support it. Since a thriving mobile Oculus sinister would likely require significant championship, analysts wondered if webOS volition attract enough investment. "It can't exist by itself as a skill experiment," said Wish Stofega, an psychoanalyst with IDC. "It has to get ahead support."

Such backing will personify key for underdeveloped the OS and for attracting application developers.

"If you were really looking to expire out and build an ecosystem round your ware, this probably isn't the one with the greatest adhesive friction," Greengart aforementioned. A phone maker targeting markets in the West, where the user expectation is "gimme apps operating room gimme death," is not passing to choose webOS, helium said.

That's because even under Palm and HP, webOS struggled to attract application developers.

Jack Metallic of J. Gold Associates united that without a dynamic drive behind webOS, it's unlikely to be successful. "Why is Mechanical man successful? It's not because IT's open source. It's because it's driven by Google," he said.

WebOS runs the risk of exposure of following other Linux-based projects that rich person cared-for progress tardily, he said. "The mobile world works at 10 times that step," Gold said.

HP didn't specify which open-seed license it would expiration the code under. John Jay Lyman, a senior analyst at The 451 Radical, expects it to use an Apache license. It's one of the Thomas More permissive licenses, allowing developers to mix open source with their own proprietary code and trade products that use the combined code, he said.

HP also did non say when it testament make the code available. Some efforts to move proprietary code to open reference drag along for prolonged periods of time, as with Nokia's Symbian Atomic number 76. Withal, that was a complicated office since Nokia had some of its sophisticated property wrapped up in the computer code, Lyman said.

He expects the process for webOS to be less complex, and since it is beingness open sourced by HP, a major drug user and admirer of Linux, the code might be released away the first half of next year, he said.

Whatever Takers?

Still, questions stay about which hardware vendors will role webOS.

Some analysts same the availability of the webOS code might prove attractive to vendors who were made nervous about Google's acquisition of Motorola, or, corresponding HTC, have struggled to differentiate their Android products. Still, few look one of the top mobile phone makers to conclusion up using the software.

LG, which has been late to the smartphone market and has a relatively small market share, might take an interest in webOS, aforesaid Chris Hazelton, an analyst with The 451 Group. A company looking to build a device like Amazon's Kindle Fire, which is not dependent on existing applications and services, might also be interested, he said. "There is a thirstiness for a high-level OS that is low monetary value and doesn't accompany baggage," he said.

WebOS could as wel prove mesmerizing to vendors worried about the increasing legal attacks connected Android. "WebOS might represent an option that has less of that IP baggage," Lyman said.

Hobbiests and developers are also likely to show some interest in webOS, Greengart said. In addition, hardware vendors in China might use webOS therein country, he said.

HP itself might also develop products exploitation the software. CEO Meg Whitman on Friday told The Verge that HP might make tablets victimization webOS. However, an HP spokesman later downplayed the idea, saying the company won't rule exterior fashioning webOS-supported hardware, but that it's not making any commitments.

The analysts all praised webOS for its superior, and they blamed its problems on its late arrival to market. "It's great," said IDC's Stofega. "There's very to be sure about that."

Nancy Gohring covers mobile phones and cloud computing for The IDG News Service. Follow Nancy on Twitter at @idgnancy. Nancy's e-mail address is Nancy_Gohring@idg.com