What HP could have done for WebOS?
Peter Bright of Ars Technica offers some very interesting possibilities for HP and WebOS.
The cheap and easy one is to port webOS to Windows. Or rather, to port the webOS runtime environment. Not the Linux-y bits, but the JavaScript-y, HTML5-y bits.
In short, make WebOS visible to (a lot of) Windows users. Showcase its potential and make the experience easy. I would add “make the un-installation an easy process” part to it, in order to give people an easy way out.
Now for the expensive part. Give away the hardware. You buy a cheap HP consumer laptop or netbook? You get a Veer. Buy a more expensive one? You get a Pre3 or a TouchPad, your choice. Run the promo for a quarter or two. Advertise all over the place. Pay whatever it takes to get 30-day SIMs with data plans from mobile networks and preinstall them in the phones. Preload them with Angry Birds. Make sure that anyone buying an HP PC will get this cute little gizmo that works and does all sorts of neat stuff out-of-the-box. The PCs should also change a bit. The TouchPad and webOS phones can sync webpages with each other just by dint of being in close proximity; the PC should be able to play the same game. Encourage people who might not otherwise be interested in the tablet or the smartphone to experiment with them.
Admittedly, running a giant corporation and providing suggestions are two different things. My question is, can HP do these two things to WebOS now? Will they be willing to bet on it even after they have spinned off the hardware division? However we slice it, it is a shame that they lost the opportunity to capitalize on the control they had on both hardware and software.
