What would Amazon do with WebOS when they have already invested so much in Android? Switching would require them to abandon the app store they built. The Silk browser seems at odds with how WebOS works. All their Android UI customizations would have to be rewritten.
My guess is a bunch of embedded Linux hackers and a large patent portfolio, which relative other vendors they're quite short on. Maybe webOS would be recycled as an OS for the ePaper products or something, but I wouldn't bet on its future even if it does go over to Amazon.
Even so it's a hard deal for me to get my head around. Amazon is not an acquisition-happy company. There's usually very clear alignment and they've never done a big talent acquisition, so I suspect there'd have to be something very specific that they're after.
What if their plan is to buy the right to ship software updates to the million TouchPad owners?
On the simple end, they could port Kindle, MP3, Prime Video, etc., and make them available as part of of a firmware update.
If they really want to, though, they could even make an "official" upgrade to Amazon's fork of Android, with the Appstore and UI that the Fire has (more precisely, the one from the 10" Fire variant they're working on).
So that gets them: (1) patents they need, (2) a bunch of in-house expertise in the full tablet hardware and software stack, (3) a bunch of customers to sell their content to and convert to their ecosystem.
That pretty much puts every asset Palm has to use except for WebOS itself, and as someone posted earlier, even that might be useful as a hedge against Google's handling of Android.
patents seem the big thing to me. If they are not cross licensing with microsoft/apple already they will probably get sued very soon, the Palm IP would be quite a big shield.
Look at it this way: their are about 1 million Touchpad users already out their due to the HP firesale. That's a nice market to buy, considering these people will want to upgrade to something in 12-18 months time, while keeping their profiles and all of the webOS software they bought (the app market in webOS land is thriving by the way since the massive influx of new users). I think whatever software work they would have to do to make this happen would be worth it to them.
Also remember they would be free of Google and Android, and all of the legal battles happening in that space right now. webOS is so far removed from any of the other platforms out there that there is no danger of being sued by someone for copying them.
Amazon has probably 10 times that many Kindle users or more already, and if HP sells Palm at a 90% discount that's still $120 per TouchPad user who may or may not ever upgrade to an Amazon Kindle. That would be a stupid way to acquire users.
Also, if you think WebOS is somehow immune to the plague of lawsuits in this industry you're crazy. Nobody is safe from lawsuits. It's just a cost of doing business these days; you pay your success tax and you move on.
> Amazon has probably 10 times that many Kindle users or more already
Kindle users may very well prove to be a different demographic than tablet users. If they sell 10 million Fires then they will probably be out-selling iPads in that space, can't see that happening. A lot of Kindle users will stick to Kindle because they just want to read books on an e-ink screen.
> Also, if you think WebOS is somehow immune to the plague of lawsuits in this industry you're crazy. Nobody is safe from lawsuits.
Do you have any idea how many mobile patents Palm has?
You realize most of Palm's pre-webOS patents weren't even owned by Palm by the time it was sold to HP, right? These guys (formerly Palmsource) own most of them: http://www.access-company.com/
All that's left are the webOS-centric patents for the most part, and patent applications such as the card metaphor (which would put QNX in a REALLY bad position if granted) are still pending.
Take a look at this from back in 2009 when Apple were raising the possibility of sueing Palm over the original Pre being too close to their iPhone (according to them):
Of course this never happened, because to quote Palm at the time:
"Palm has a long history of innovation that is reflected in our products and robust patent portfolio, and we have long been recognized for our fundamental patents in the mobile space. If faced with legal action, we are confident that we have the tools necessary to defend ourselves."
Note that this statement was written well after the spin-off of Palmsource.
It's not difficult to ascertain that ACCESS/Palmsource very likely granted unconditional use of the patents to the existing Palm that sold those very patents to them, therefore giving it basically unfettered rights to defend itself against Apple in this scenario.
I think -- although I am not sure -- that you have to own a patent in order to sue for infringement, which -- if true -- puts a big hole in your argument.
Now patents might be a good reason to buy Palm, but that's completely separate from the fate of WebOS. Amazon could take the patents and throw WebOS away.
I could see Amazon using the card metaphor as a custom multitasking Android launcher with full power of a pending patent application behind it while ditching the remainder of the OS. It's the one distinction webOS has had in UX and one that's generally garnered the most positive attention.
I could not, however, see Amazon hedging on Android by holding webOS in state. That would be a rather insane move given the audience the Kindle Fire will attract from Day One.
What about Dalvik and the on-going Oracle case? webOS has no Java, there is another distinction for you. It's the full stack in webOS that is unique, not just the UI.
That's partially true; webOS 3.0 has no Java as far as I'm aware, deferring to node.js for its services instead. webOS prior to that (e.g., Mojo era) contains an absolute trove of Java all over the damned place. I remember dissecting the media system looking for private APIs in parallel with developing a webOS application and many points led right back to Java-based services that assisted in doing a lot of perfunctory tasks.
In fact, I distinctly remember asking the Palm webOS developers when I discovered in their Java-based media services a particular call that instantly parsed SHOUTcast/Icecast-style playlists of many various formats with ease whether it'd become a public API call. It never did.
If HP races to finally reconcile the two sides as a promised a half-year ago a la Android's ICS, then there might be no obstacles to the Java argument. Until then, however...
> Amazon could take the patents and throw WebOS away.
...along with at least 1 million webOS users? Who are currently buying software from the webOS store, and are likely to buy future webOS hardware from Amazon (or whoever else how makes it)? Really?
There's no market for TouchPad software. Those customers just bought TouchPads because they were cheap, not because they want to use them regularly (like iPad and probably Kindle Fire). If TouchPad wasn't $99, they couldn't even sell 25,000 of them. They sold 1M by losing money and going out of business, not by creating an ecosystem which can 'trap' customers (and make them buy their future products just because their apps and music works only on that device) like what Apple and Amazon do.
Actually, I had just been waiting for the price to come down, but I am going to use my Touchpad for just about everything but development. I love WebOS, and I'm not saying there are many of us, but WebOS fans are pretty devoted. Kind of like Apple fanboys back in the day.
I don't buy that they are buying user profiles. The ability to run WebOS apps on the Kindle would be interesting, but buying such a small app market and spending the extra money to integrate it, I don't know if I buy that. And a complete move the WebOS? Abandoning the people who bought in to the Amazon App Store? No way. Moving to WebOS and making that able to run Android apps makes more sense, but I still don't see any incentive there. The Fire will be a huge success, and it looks like it works pretty good out of the box, and that should only improve with time. Why would they bother to start over with a move to WebOS?
It is a little premature to say that there is no danger of being sued as most of the litigation around Android surfaced recently (almost after it began to gain traction) and not back in 2008 when it first launched?
With all the bogus patents out there, it is hard to imagine any complex mobile system that doesn't infringe on _something_ out there.
Amazon has shown that they're open to pivots and trying new things before. I wouldn't be surprised if they made two different lines of Kindles, with different OS's. They are trying to achieve market dominance with the Amazon App Store—with WebOS they could truly achieve market dominance since they'd be the main source of apps.
But the Kindle Fire is supposed to be an appliance. It's supposed to Just Work. Adding a second tablet with a different OS would confuse Amazon's target audience.
there are two different kindle products - the e-ink kindle and the kindle fire. the e-ink kindle has a few different revisions with different input and connectivity methods, but in the end it is all the same functionality: the ability to read books, shop in the kindle store, and nothing else.
Apple does, but for devices that are clearly different. There is clear differentiation between the iOS app store and the OSX app store. There is also clear differentiation between the iPhone and iPad sections on the app store. The three forms are physically different enough to draw a cognitive line in the sand. I doubt many people who own an iPhone think it's an iPad or own an iPad and think its a Mac.
If Amazon ultimately uses WebOS to get into the phone market, I could see them easily managing two different app stores easily. If they create one set of Android tablets and one set of WebOS tablets, it's going to be a bit trickier. All of this is really going to depend on how apps fair on the new Amazon tablet.
And misses the relevance of the app store for Amazon, who sell slates to sell book content.
It also ignores the most common approach to app stores.
The OS determines which app store one can visit.
I.e. even my mom can't download Macapps to her iPhone.
[Edit]Your argument also assumes that Amazon will not differentiate the tablets which seems contrary to their differentiation between the Fire and Kindle (e.g. touch screen operation means different sorts of apps).
> And misses the relevance of the app store for Amazon, who sell slates to sell book content.
I'm not sure I understand this. There is no issues with selling book content on any flavor of Amazon device, it's all the stuff. The issue is with Apps and having two or three tablet devices, all running different OS's with different app stores.
> The OS determines which app store one can visit.
Sort of. I have both an iPad and iPhone, but rarely use the AppStore built-in to either one, unless I know exactly what app I want to buy. I prefer discovery using iTunes. I'm sure some % of Amazon uses do something similar with the www.amazon.com app store front, though not having an Android device, I'm not entirely familiar with the options available and how they compare to Apple's AppStore.
> I.e. even my mom can't download Macapps to her iPhone.
She can't download them, but she could mistakenly purchase them. I think the separation is clear enough to avoid mistakes between Apple devices. I'm simply arguing that the potential is worse for Amazon should they roll out both Android and WebOS tablets. Again, the issue would only stem from an off-device app store, since an on-device store can obviously filter.
> Your argument also assumes that Amazon will not differentiate the tablets which seems contrary to their differentiation between the Fire and Kindle
The argument is not whether or not they will differentiate, but rather to what extent they will be differentiated. The differences between Fire and Kindle are obvious. The difference between Fire and (WebOS Tablet) is more of the question.
> She can't download them, but she could mistakenly purchase them. I think the separation is clear enough to avoid mistakes between Apple devices. I'm simply arguing that the potential is worse for Amazon should they roll out both Android and WebOS tablets. Again, the issue would only stem from an off-device app store, since an on-device store can obviously filter.
I don't think they'll have 2 OSes but I don't think this is true. Buying an app requires an Amazon account, so they could obviously stop people from buying apps that are not compatible with their device.
Probably if they buy WebOS it will be for the Kindle Fire 2 which won't be for another year, at which point they can transition (slowly) away from Android. Buying WebOS on the cheap might be too good of an idea to pass up on.
What would Amazon do with WebOS when they have already invested so much in Android?
Google can pull the rug out from under them at any time for any reason. You can't run a multi-billion dollar business on good faith alone. It would be nice to believe that Google wouldn't do that type of thing, and maybe they won't, but it's a huge risk to take. Amazon is playing to win this. They have to believe at some point the Fire and other Amazon tablets will be so successful that they can easily attract developers. (and we can't rule out some form of Android compatibility being added to WebOS -- something Palm may have already been working on and could be quite mature. If RIM managed it I'm pretty sure Palm can too)
What can Google do to Amazon? The only real ownership Google has over Android is in the market that Amazon's not using, and in the development of new versions which Amazon can easily ignore by forking for good (and that would probably hurt Google more than Amazon, by fragmenting the platform).
