Hewlett-Packard apparently plans to ship PCs capable of running the company’s recently acquired webOS.
A 9 March Bloomberg report quotes the company’s CEO Leo Apotheker as saying the move would create “a massive platform” and help differentiate the company’s broad family of products from its rivals. HP’s webOS PCs will apparently dual-boot with Windows.
If you listen to some of the pundits’ reactions, the bell may be readying to toll for Microsoft and Windows.
Galen Gruman over at InfoWorld is calling HP’s move the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back.
“I fully expect all the dark mutterings I’ve been hearing off the record about Microsoft’s rudderless mobile efforts and lack of interest in a new version of Windows will go public,” he wrote, before suggesting those frustrations represent “an eerie parallel” to “what’s happening in North Africa and the Middle East today.”
Yep, because Microsoft totally equates with what’s going on in Libya right now.
Meanwhil
Let’s take a nice deep breath, boil a cup of soothing tea, and remember that Microsoft’s position in the operating-system market is deeply entrenched.
The latest Net Application data pegs Windows’ market-share at 89.69 percent. By comparison, Apple’s hold on that market totals 5.19 percent – its iOS franchise holds 1.81 percent of that same market, if you aggregate PC operating systems in with mobile ones.
Even if HP manages to execute on its plan to bring webOS to all its PCs, and even if it persuades developers to design a massive portfolio of useful and fun applications for the platform, and even if consumers and IT pros overcome any natural hesitation in embracing new and relatively unknown, and even if webOS manages to integrate a whole host of legacy applications without requiring users to switch over to Windows, it’s unlikely that it’ll erode Microsoft’s market-share in any appreciable way, especially considering that HP is keeping the Windows option as a dual-boot.
Continued on page 2
Page: 1 2
CMA receives 'provisional recommendation' from independent inquiry that Apple,Google mobile ecosystem needs investigation
Government minister flatly rejects Elon Musk's “unsurprising” allegation that Australian government seeks control of Internet…
Northvolt files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States, and CEO and co-founder…
Targetting AWS, Microsoft? British competition regulator soon to announce “behavioural” remedies for cloud sector
Move to Elon Musk rival. Former senior executive at X joins Sam Altman's venture formerly…
Bitcoin price rises towards $100,000, amid investor optimism of friendlier US regulatory landscape under Donald…