We joked about HP printers running webOS almost the second we learned about
the Palm acquisition, but it turns out that's actually part of the plan: HP CEO Mark Hurd told analysts that webOS would hit a "variety of form factors, including slates and web-connected printers" on the company's Q2 financial results call today. webOS tablets were
obviously a no-brainer, but printers are slightly more intriguing, in a way: while we're not overly surprised HP wants to leverage webOS on its line of
advanced touchscreen printers, we're very curious to see what that actually looks like in practice -- a printer with Synergy-level Facebook integration for easy photo printing? A printer that can play 3D games like Need for Speed? A printer that can... multitask? The possibilities are amusingly endless, if you think about it -- and HP's printing and imaging division is a $6.4 billion dollar business, so the money and motivation to push this idea into strange new places are certainly there. Speaking of money, HP's doing just well on that front in general: profits were up 25 percent this quarter to $2.9 billion on total revenues of $30 billion, so yeah -- Palm certainly has the money and resources it's desperately needed. Now it just needs some new products and sharper execution.
posted May 18th 2010 6:09PM
And yet it will still flat-out refuse to print anything until I refill the yellow ink that is only half empty, sacrifice a chicken and unjam eighteen sheets of paper that it unceremoniously crunches between its jaws (while spewing what is left of the precious black ink).
Dear HP. I want to love you, I really do, but the lack of empathy and customer support you've shown me and thousands of others over the years really makes me think you're going to drive Web/OS and Palm right into the ground. You know, when people actually buy your hardware, you should really try and support them for a while and write some decent drivers/applications that don't do O/S checks in them and prevent their otherwise perfectly good hardware to suddenly be obsolete. Like the $49.99 all in one printer I saw a lady buy in Wally World the other day, I said to her, ya that is a heck of a good deal lady, but look at the fine print on the box. Oh, right there...see, not all functions will be present in Windows 7. I then asked her, what O/S you running? She said, Windows 7...I said, ya, this isn't the product for you. Just saved her the aggravation I've had to endure after I bought one of your MCE machines. Its a fast bloody machine now that I've managed to hack it to work on Windows 7. No thanks to you and your non-supporting Win 7 drivers. Thank goodness there is a community out there a lot smarter than you are. They've managed to hack a lot of your drivers to work on Win 7. Because of them, I am still in business. Before you fuck up Palm and Web O/S take a moment and read your message boards on your own website once in a while. Listen to your customers. For if you continue to drive them all away, you'll never get them back no matter how awesome the products you produce...
Once a loyal customer
While I somewhat like the idea, I sort of can imagine myself wanting to just sit in front of my printer playing with WebOS, which would be kind of weird.. I think it may be unnecessary.
HP's move is a Huge vote of no confidence in Windows Phone and Microsoft's ability to mount any sort of meaningful competition to Iphone/Ipad.
And rightfully so. Because WinPhone7 is Ugly, Stupid, and shows no hope whatsoever that anyone at Microsoft has even the the slightest clue as to why people are buying Iphones and Ipads or what to do about it.
@obobo Yeah, perhaps you should be running Microsoft because clearly you've offered up some compelling arguments there. First off we don't know exactly what HP's Move is. Since I didn't see any mention of what they're doing with the Windows 7 HP Slate. You guys can talk all you want to talk about a Web/OS slate, but a Windows 7 Slate (because of the hot sales of netbooks) has a chance to be successful, if only HP would target it as a netbook alternative and not an iPad killer.
www.savehpslate.com
I think web-connected printers with WebOS could easily become a target of choice for penetrating poorly-configured LANs. Security vulnarabilities will eventually be found and we'll just have to rely on HP to be reactive enough, especially since WebOS is closed-source
I will love webOS to be true competitor.
But don't forget management. Apple is what it is based on Jobs vision.
If HP have Steve Jobs clone they can compete.
If they think like "old HP" they will screw it up.
And putting this os on printers is big F...in disaster.
GIve us a SLATE. Then do what you want.
@cherryboom
You gotta relax.
My thought is that the printer replaces the desktop PC? Does that make sense to anyone? The only thing(s) that really aren't portable or multiscreenable (anywhere the cloud is) are the printer and scanner. If you want to take something from the digital world to the real world or vice versa you're kinda stuck printing or scanning (microphone or camera-ing) So if the webOS printer is your "desktop" you can flutter around the world on your 9th screen wherever because the digital world can be anywhere on anything... but the real world... is still kind of on paper... and HP has you there
Wow!...wait, people still use printers?