HP Releases Open webOS In Beta Mode In Hopes Of Creating A Tablet Ecosystem

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Hewlett

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) has released an open source version of the webOS in beta mode. The beta release consists of 54 webOS components and half a million lines of code under the Apache 2.0 license. HP has released two build environments; a desktop build and an OpenEmbedded build. The desktop build provides a development environment for enhancing the webOS user experience with new features and developers can use all their desktop tools on powerful development machines, while the OpenEmbedded build provides a development environment for developers to port webOS to new devices. Releasing the webOS as an open source software is likely to draw third party developers to the platform and help develop a healthy app environment for HP. [1]

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Two Objectives

The desktop development platform is the primary environment for improving the webOS experience. Powered by Ubuntu Linux, it supports many applications, including core webOS applications such as Calendar and Contacts, as well as some third-party apps. The mobile framework is for users who want to deploy webOS on new devices. It includes an ARM emulator that can run core webOS services. HP is also working on a future release that includes the full webOS experience. This is, however, unlikely to be a bid to revive the HP Touchpad tablet range.

Windows 8 Tablets

HP announced that it will resume production of tablets running Microsoft Windows 8 OS aimed for institutional use. It has decided to concentrate on tablets running Intel’s x86 processor powered by Windows 8 Pro and is steering clear of the ARM processor based Windows 8 RT tablets. As HP is the world’s largest PC hardware manufacturer and has a huge institutional client base, the more powerful x86 format is likely to be popular as productivity tools with institutions and HP can leverage this network. The ARM tablet space is dominated by Apple with the iPad and HP is sticking to its strength by making productivity focused tablets. [2]

We currently have a $29.76 Trefis price estimate for HP, which is much higher than the current market price.

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Notes:
  1. HP Releases webOS In Beta, blog.openwebosproject.org, Aug 2012 []
  2. Hewlett-Packard To Shun ARM At Debut Of Microsoft Windows 8, www.bloomberg.com, June 30, 2012 []