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HP to use palm’ webOS for slates, netbooks.

July 5th, 2010
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HP said that in addition to printers and smartphones it would also use webOS operating system he got as a result of taking over Palm on tablet personal computers as well as netbooks. The actual plans remain unconfirmed, but it looks like the company does have serious intentions when it comes to webOS.

“With HP’s full backing and global strengths, I’m confident that webOS will be able to reach its full potential. This agreement will accelerate the development of this incredible platform with new resources, scale and support from a world-respected brand,” said Jon Rubinstein, former Palm chairman and chief executive officer who will now work at HP.

HP’s global scale and financial strength plus Palm’s award-winning webOS experience, as well as its acclaimed Pre and Pixi smartphone product lines, enhance HP’s ability to participate more aggressively in the highly profitable, $100 billion smartphone and connected mobile device markets. Palm will be responsible for webOS software development and webOS based hardware products, from a robust smartphone roadmap to future slate PCs and netbooks, HP said.

HP has already announced plans to install webOS onto its printers, but using the operating system originally developed for smartphones on slate PCs and netbooks seems to be a surprising decision. Nonetheless, it should be kept in mind that it will take HP some time to tailor the webOS for personal computers. At present the OS works only on ARM processors that power smartphones, whereas netbooks and slates use x86 chips and hence the operating system needs to be redesigned. As a result, it will take months or even longer for webOS to find itself on tablets or netbooks.

“With webOS, HP will deliver its customers a unique and compelling experience across smartphones and other mobility products. This allows us the opportunity to fully engage in growing our smartphone family offering and the footprint of webOS,” said Todd Bradley, executive vice president of personal systems group at HP.

Source:-http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mobile/display/20100705135640_HP_to_Use_Palm_s_WebOS_for_Slates_Netbooks.html

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HP confirms webOS tablets and netbooks

July 2nd, 2010
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Hewlett-Packard announced the successful completion of its Palm acquisition and confirmed plans to build netbooks and tablets powered by Palm’s webOS mobile operating system.

According to the official statement released Thursday, HP purchased Palm common stock in cash for $5.70 per share. Palm’s former chairman and CEO Jon Rubinstein will lead the Palm global business unit at HP and report to Todd Bradley, executive vice president of HP’s personal systems group.

The Palm team will continue developing webOS software and hardware under HP’s wing, including Pre and Pixi smartphones. Furthermore, the statement specifically mentioned the computer maker’s intention to build netbooks and tablets powered by webOS:

Palm will be responsible for webOS software development and webOS based hardware products, from a robust smartphone roadmap to future slate PCs and netbooks.

Some watchers speculated that webOS might go beyond smarphones, tablets, and netbooks and find its way to HP’s printers and other connected devices where a consistent and unified user interface makes sense.

Read more in HP’s press release

Christian’s Opinion

HP’s initial press release announcing the $1.2 billion Palm acquisition hinted at plans to leverage webOS in their mobile products but this is the first time they actually mentioned slates and netbooks. If you ask me, Microsoft is the biggest loser here. Some even suggested that a recent management reshuffling at Microsoft stemmed from HP’s decision to axe their slate, citing performance issues with Windows 7. It makes sense: The HP Slate was supposed to be the flagship Windows 7 tablet and Ballmer even demoed it briefly at CES 2010.

Who should Steve Ballmer then blame if not himself for letting the world’s leading computer maker jump ship? The loss of such a strategic account would have resulted in management changes in any company. While webOS would have been a winner for, say, Acer, HP’s huge reach, their worldwide distribution network, and brand recognition is exactly what webOS needs to become a mass market platform. Finally, let’s not forget that HP now sits atop Palm’s vast patent portfolio.

Source:http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/hp-confirms-webos-tablets-and-netbooks-2010072/

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Dell ‘in talks’ with Google over Chrome OS netbooks

June 22nd, 2010
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Dell is “in talks” with Google over Mountain View’s still-gestating Chrome OS, an operating system that limits itself to a Google web browser.

“We have to have a point of view on the industry and technology direction two years, three years down the road, so we continuously work with Google on this,” Amit Midha, Dell’s president for Greater China and South Asia told Reuters.

“There are going to be unique innovations coming up in the marketplace in two, three years, with a new form of computing, we want to be on that forefront … So with Chrome or Android or anything like that we want to be one of the leaders.”

Dell has not made an official announcement, but Midha told Reuters that Chrome OS talks are underway.

When Google first announced Chrome OS last summer, Dell was not on the list of official hardware partners. But in the fall, just after Google released a snapshot of Chrome OS code to the open source Chromium project, Dell engineer Doug Anson turned out an unofficial Chrome OS build for the Dell Mini, the company’s 10-inch netbook. And last week, the Download Squad noticed that the code repository for Chromium OS includes some bits that point to Dell as an early manufacturer.

The repository includes three “overlay” files for configuring hardware support during the build process, and one carries the Dell name. The other two point to Acer and HP, both official Google partners.

Meanwhile, Anson continues to pump out his own Chrome OS builds. The latest arrived on June 8. “I really enjoy popping out these images every few weeks,” Anson said on the Chromium discussion mailing list. “I can say that the images themselves seem to be getting better and better with each iteration.

Source:-http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/22/dell_in_talks_with_google_over_chrome_os/

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Tablets will shine, but will not replace netbooks

May 27th, 2010
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Tablet personal computers will get significantly more popular this year as many leading-edge companies, including Acer Group, Asustek Computer, Google and Others are preparing to release their slates. However, people will hardly cease to use netbooks just because of that since many still need keyboards for office and other applications.

According to DRAMeXchange, a market tracking firm, tablet PC is fundamentally different from netbook: consumers with higher demand for Intern or office work will still prefer to use netbooks or notebooks as their computing devices. However, users with higher demand in entertainment, who browse the Internet most of the time or do some very simple things are likely to choose slate-type PC. In short, being a spin-off of notebook, netbook is still designed to create something in addition to consume Web-based services, whereas tablets are optimized strictly for consumption and are not intended for creation of anything.

“DRAMeXchange sees seldom overlapping customer base for netbooks and tablets. We expect tablet PC to create another new market after netbook,” a statement by the market research firm reads.

Asus and Acer plan to launch and demonstrate their slate-type products at Computex Taipei this Jine, according to the company. Besides, the firm claims that Google will cooperate with Verizon on new tablet PC to compete with Apple iPad.

DRAMeXchange expects many companies to cooperate for tablet PC business. For example, content delivery services will have to collaborate with hardware vendors to actually enable customers to consume the content using the forthcoming slates. The firm expects tablets to be “another spotlight” in PC world.

DRAMeXchange projects H1 2010 iPad shipment to be around 1.7 million units with 7 – 8 million will be shipped in total this year.

Source:http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mobile/display/20100527101601_Tablets_Will_Shine_But_Will_Not_Replace_Netbooks_Analysts.html

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Trend Micro offers Titanium Internet Security for netbooks

April 15th, 2010
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Running a standard desktop security suite on a netbook computer can have a detrimental effect on the performance of the hardware. These portable devices just don’t have the power to run such software like a desktop PC can.

Some security vendors have realized this and released netbook-specific security suites. The latest is Trend Micro which has launched Titanium Internet Security for Netbooks.

Titanium offers netbook users real-time protection against viruses and spyware while promising to have no impact on performance.

Anthony O’Mara, vice president for Europe at Trend Micro commented:

Trend Micro found that, for everyday tasks such as email and surfing the web, netbook users need easy-to-install, easy-to-use powerful protection that automatically detects and removes the latest viruses and spyware. Trend has responded to that need with Titanium.

Titanium Security is available now for $39.95 with a single user license. It will run on Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 and requires 150MB of disc space.

Read more at V3.co.uk

Matthew’s Opinion

In order to run with minimal performance impact you have to scale back the amount of monitoring being performed and the type of scans being done. Trend Micro seem to have focused on offering the core real-time protection here, which is the most important area as netbooks are generally used for web surfing and e-mail checking.

Some vendors actively look to limit their netbook protection to netbook hardware e.g. Kaspersky, but Trend Micro don’t seem to be doing that so you could run this on a desktop machine as far as I can tell. The pricing does put it in the same category as the company’s AntiVirus + AntiSpyware offering, so that’s probably the better option away from a netbook.

Source:http://www.geek.com/articles/news/trend-micro-offers-titanium-internet-security-for-netbooks-20100415/

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