Hewlett-Packard chief strategy and technology officer Shane Robison said the company plans to integrate a significant number of products into Palm's webOS smartphone platform, acquired when H-P purchased the device maker for $1.2 billion in April 2010. In an interview with Reuters, Robison said H-P is relying on integration possibilities to attract mobile developers to webOS: "This isn't strictly focused on the tablet," Robison said. "We're going to have printers, even some printers that have detachable, smaller slate devices on them. And when you think about the number of printers we ship, 50 million-plus a year, that gets the app developers' attention."
According to Robison, persuading developers to write webOS applications is a critical component of H-P's future strategy. "We need a rich catalog of apps and we're working hard on that," he said, adding that in addition to devices running webOS, the company also plans to market tablets for the enterprise segment powered by Microsoft's Windows software. Google's Android mobile OS is "not on the roadmap," however.
Palm plans to issue webOS version 2.0 sometime during the remainder of 2010. Speaking at last month's Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference, Palm CEO Jon Rubenstein confirmed webOS 2.0 will arrive "later this year" but divulged no other details, including an expected release data or what the upgrade will entail.
For more on H-P's webOS strategy:
- read this Reuters article
Related articles:
Palm to release webOS 2.0 'later this year'
Palm issues webOS 1.4.5 update for Pre and Pixi
HP promises to expand webOS platform post-Palm deal
Palm launches 3D games on webOS