Direct action
Nobody has spoken much about webOS since HP bought it but then, a month ago, it suddenly announced the launch of the Palm Pre 2, featuring HP's first major revision on the OS. It was all a bit of an anticlimax for the UK, however, as not even an approximate availability date was offered for us.
The good news is that HP has now announced that we will be able to buy the Pre 2, direct from the Palm website, next Monday, starting at £399 SIM-free. There was no mention of any operators and still no date offered for the webOS 2.0 update for existing customers.
Why should we care? you may be wondering. There are two main reasons as far as we're concerned. Firstly, as the mobile Internet land-grab evolves, this is another major mobile OS with the backing of one of the world's biggest technology companies. While we can't see webOS handsets rivaling Android or iOS in terms of units, there's no reason why it can't be a credible number three or four player.
One of the reasons we think this is the novel ways in which HP promises to implement webOS. It's unlikely to be a huge consumer hit, regardless of its quality, as it has too little momentum compared to its competitors. But HP has massive presence in the enterprise computing market as well as being the world's biggest printer-maker.
WebOS is already starting to crop up in printers in the form of mini-tablet removable consoles that make the printer completely independent of any other device, and we expect to see some other novel business uses of webOS. In this sense, HP will be competing more directly with BlackBerry and WP7.
"HP webOS 2.0 is the biggest leap forward for webOS since it launched 17 months ago," said Miles Norman, sales director UK & Ireland, Palm. "It expands the features that make webOS great for consumers, enterprises and developers, and introduces powerful new features that make it easier to get more things done with your webOS device."
