H-P (HPQ) Prolongs Death of webOS
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Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) announced Friday webOS will now be open source -- free to modify and customize for a slight licensing fee. And nary a flinch out of the stock on the news. Uh, oh...
Well better late then never.
Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) Android, Mozilla's Firefox, and Oracle's (Nasdaq: ORCL) Java are all open source, met with success in each of their respective markets.
But there's also a lot of failures -- or rather, not-so-successful -- open source platforms out there as well. Linux is widely recognized as one of the best platforms and open source programs out there, but isn't selling billions of copies per year like Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows. Nokia (NYSE: NOK) also started Symbian as a proprietary OS, and we all know what happened after it went open source.
Plus, this from the release: "HP plans to continue to be active in the development and support of webOS." As CNET so aptly put it, "If HP doesn't care enough to support WebOS properly, why should anyone else?"
With exiting and re-entering the tablet and PC businesses, and buying Autonomy in a $10 billion deal, who knows what is in store for H-P next. Maybe K-Cup machines? Starbucks (NasdaQ: SBUX) seems to have met some success with that.
Shares closed just shy of 1 percent higher.
Well better late then never.
Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) Android, Mozilla's Firefox, and Oracle's (Nasdaq: ORCL) Java are all open source, met with success in each of their respective markets.
But there's also a lot of failures -- or rather, not-so-successful -- open source platforms out there as well. Linux is widely recognized as one of the best platforms and open source programs out there, but isn't selling billions of copies per year like Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows. Nokia (NYSE: NOK) also started Symbian as a proprietary OS, and we all know what happened after it went open source.
Plus, this from the release: "HP plans to continue to be active in the development and support of webOS." As CNET so aptly put it, "If HP doesn't care enough to support WebOS properly, why should anyone else?"
With exiting and re-entering the tablet and PC businesses, and buying Autonomy in a $10 billion deal, who knows what is in store for H-P next. Maybe K-Cup machines? Starbucks (NasdaQ: SBUX) seems to have met some success with that.
Shares closed just shy of 1 percent higher.
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