Palm had its biggest success making a line of eponymous personal digital assistants (PDAs), but struggled a bit when consumer interest turned to smartphones about 7 years ago. The situation became even worse when Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android OS were introduced a couple of years later. However, under the new leadership of CEO Jon Rubinstein Palm developed webOS and started selling the Pre line of smartphones. While these were widely praised by reviewers they didn’t garner enough sales to allow Palm to remain independent. Therefore, in 2010, the company sold itself to HP.

From here, the story is taken up by Phil McKinney, who was HP’s Chief Technology Officer until last fall and therefore has the inside scoop. He said, in a recent interview with Rick Mathieson:

“[This] was going to be a long term effort. Palm was struggling and HP was stepping in, doing the acquisition, and we were basically going to take three years hands-off. Palm was basically going to get cash infusions, resources, and expertise.”

Unfortunately that’s not the way events turned out. Shortly after the deal had been completed, HP got a new CEO, Leo Apotheker. Instead of three years he gave Palm only one. Weeks after the first webOS-based tablet, the TouchPad, was released, Apotheker decided to kill off the entire webOS product line.

McKinney’s said, “This is an example of not committing long term to the resources and not having patience for innovation.” HP’s board of directors apparently agreed, and Apotheker was fired shortly after the decision to kill off the webOS was announced. But the damage had already been done, and webOS was all but dead, barely continuing as an open-source project.

It’s too bad that we’ll never know what would have happened if HP had given webOS the three years it was promised. Maybe it could have become a serious competitor to Android and the iPhone. Maybe not. We’ll never know.

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This was a sad day for me. I started out reporting about Palm over ten years ago, back in the days of the PDA. I followed it through the transition to smartphones, and the rocky switch from the Palm OS to the webOS.  

I wrote an editorial for Brighthand on why HP was forced to pull out of the mobile market, and what it means for anyone trying to go head-to-head with Google and Apple.

Read the full content of this editorial at:

With HP Out of the Running, Can Anyone Compete with Android and iPhone?

Jamison Cush, the Site Editor for TechTarget’s TabletPCReview wrote his own editorial about the swift demise of the HP TouchPad, this company’s first and last tablet running the webOS.

You can find his take on HP’s devision here:

The HP TouchPad Obituary

It’s well worth a read. Jamison makes some good points about HP’s failure to truly commit to the demands of the mobile market.

Related News Articles on Brighthand:

• HP To Stop Making webOS Smartphones, Might License the OS to Others
• Samsung Might License the webOS

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Just a year or so ago, Research In Motion (RIM) was on top of the smartphone world. No longer. It’s now in third place and dropping. Google’s Android OS is now the top dog, followed by the iOS.

Following the Changes
comScore gave no reasons for these changes, but I think I can supply them. It’s all about new models. The operating systems that have lots of new products are growing, the ones that don’t aren’t.

A number of companies are making Android-based smartphones: HTC, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, etc. These were pouring out new handsets this spring, practically flooding the market. These were noticeably improved over last-year’s offerings, with better screens and faster processors. It’s no surprise that Android is on the rise.

To understand Apple’s numbers you have to keep in mind what comScore is tracking. These figures aren’t for new device purchases, they are the total number of Americans who own a smartphone. That’s why it makes sense that Apple’s share of the market was flat this spring: the company hasn’t put out a new iPhone since the middle of last year, so there’s not going to be any growth, but users of i-products tend to be very loyal, so they aren’t likely to switch to Android.

RIM, on the other hand, also hasn’t refreshed its product line since last year, but its once-loyal customer base is starting to drift away. This is because it is losing the battle for third-party developers. Smartphone shoppers are looking at the huge array of apps available for the iOS and Android and they want access to them.  RIM is trying to switch to a new, better operating system but this might be too late.

Microsoft is the exception to this rule. It introduced a new operating system late last year, Windows Phone 7, and a number of new devices were released to run it. But there’s a wrinkle: most of the fans of Windows Phone 6.5 were business users, but the new 7.0 version was built to appear to consumers. And so far, consumers haven’t embraced it. Hence the drop in U.S. marketshare.

Like RIM, Palm needs to get some new smartphones on the market.  It’s now a part of HP (and comScore’s report should reflect this change)  but this company has yet to introduce any compelling new webOS-based handsets. That’s why it was bad news that the HP Pre 3 has reportedly been delayed until this fall. The webOS is fine operating system, but it’s not going to grow in marketshare based on the models that are available now.

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Strengths
After taking over as the head of Palm, Inc. a few years ago, Rubinstein performed what almost amounts to a miracle. He took a company that hadn’t been able to release a significant update to the Palm OS in about 5 years and refashioned it into an organization that created the webOS in a surprisingly short amount of time.

I’m a big fan of this operating system. It offers a system for working with multiple apps on a small screen that’s vastly  superior to any of its rivals. You can easily switch between running apps, or close them, with just a couple swipes of your finger. It makes the systems for moving between and closing apps by Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android OS look like kludgey messes. 

This is something I think darn few people on Earth could have done. He took a company that was completely stuck in the mud and turned it around to the point where it could create something truly innovative.

Weaknesses
I’m sure some of you are asking, “If the webOS is so great, why did it do so poorly against the iPhone and the Droids of the world?” The answer is simple: this operating system was put in bad hardware. When the Palm Pre debuted in 2009, it was too small. Its 3.1-inch screen was marginal, but the portrait oriented keyboard was barely usable. No one picked it up and said “Hey, this is awesome!”

The wonderful software helped make up for this, and if Palm had learned its lesson things might have been different. If the company had released a follow-up smartphone with a larger screen and a landscape-oriented keyboard — something many, many people were asking for — Palm might still be here as a company today. But that didn’t happen. Instead, Palm followed the Pre up with the Pixi, which was even smaller. (And it had a name that kept 90% of man from ever seriously considering it.)

As time went by, Palm continued to not learn its lesson. In 2010 came the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus, which were just mildly updated versions of the originals. And in the pipeline were the Pre 2 and Veer, more small-formfactor smartphones. 

These devices were competing against a range of models with ever larger and higher-resolution displays. The Motorola Droid came out in 2009 with the design that Palm should have adopted: a landscape-oriented slider with a 3.7-inch display and a keyboard you wanted to use. And it sold brilliantly — I could make a strong argument that if this smartphone hadn’t come out and been marketed so well by Verizon the entire Android OS would have been a flop.  And this is just one of many examples Palm had of how to do things right – Palm just ignored them.

I blame Rubinstein for taking a great operating system and putting it in bad hardware. He’s the man in charge — the buck stopped on his desk. He should have seen the blindingly obvious: that the people who were designing Palm’s smartphones needed to be fired.

I also blame him for greenlighting some of the creepiest ads I’ve ever seen. Successful devices need great advertising. The iPhone showed us that, and so did the Droid. Palm was not successful at marketing any webOS phone.

As a result, Palm had to sell itself to HP last year. And now HP has replaced Rubinstein, for good or ill.

Moving On
Rubinstein is being replaced by Stephen DeWitt, and I hope Mr. DeWitt can learn from his predecessor’s mistakes. People want larger screens on their smartphones, but they want better keyboards even more. He should give up the unhealthy fixation on portrait mode that previous webOS models have stubbornly held on to.

But at the same time, I hope DeWitt will have Rubinstein’s strengths as well. The webOS is a great operating system, but there’s always room for enhancement. I hope the new leader of webOS development will be able to keep this operating system improving steadily and consistently — that’s what Jon Rubinstein would have done.

Related Articles on Brighthand:

• Jon Rubinstein Steps Aside as Head of HP’s webOS Division

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This is something I’ve read or heard many times, “_____ is wasting its time with _______, because Google and Apple have the smartphone market wrapped up.” There are a range of options for those blanks:

• HP, webOS
• Microsoft, Windows Phone 7
• Nokia, Symbian

But this statement just isn’t true. As evidence, I submit the newly-released results of a survey which found that the vast majority of smartphone users are open to switching to another operating system if they see a good reason to (read more).

Apple did best in this survey, but it still found that over 40% of current iPhone users have no loyalty to this company. And Google’s Android OS did even worse – just 28% of current users of said they were definitely sticking with it. 

A Lack of Maturity
The PC market is mature, and after someone has been a Windows user for a decade or more, they are unlikely to go out and buy a Mac. The reverse is also true: long-time Mac users aren’t likely to get a Vista PC.

But the mobile device market is not mature. A great many smartphone users are still on their first device. After someone has been using a BlackBerry for 6 months, if they see a really cool Droid or Palm or Windows phone, they are open to switching.

An important part of this is the fact that the mobile platforms themselves are still immature. Really important features are still missing or have weak support. Fonts, printing, and Adobe Flash are just a few examples.

The operating systems that offer the best support for the features users want are the ones that are going to draw in customers. If HP can bring in important features faster than Google can, then customers are going to switch to Palm devices. The same is true of Microsoft and Windows Phone 7.

Related Articles on Brighthand:

• Only 25% of Smartphone Users Are Committed to Their Current Operating System

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A webOS-based device would be a good replacement if there were any with a screen close to what Palm’s PDAs offered, but there aren’t. 

To me, the best option currently available for a Palm OS user who wants to switch to something more up to date is the Dell Streak.

This a smartphone, but you don’t have to use it that way. This device is available without a contract, and Google’s Android OS works wonderfully over a Wi-Fi connection. (You can even use push email.)

It’s true, the Streak is somewhat expensive: $550 without a contract. But those who bought a Tungsten T5 back in the day paid $400 for it, and that’s about $450 in 2010 dollars.

For the extra money you get a much, much better mobile computer. Dell’s mini-tablet has a 5-inch, WVGA touchscreen and a 1 GHz processor. It has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and unlike your old PDA, you can put in a SIM card and use it as a phone if you want.

Its software, especially the web browser, is vastly better. Plus, there are loads of third-party apps: games, productivity tools, etc.

This device is big, but it still fits in a pants pocket. That’s a decent description of many of the Palm OS devices, too.

All of this makes the Dell Streak a very good option for someone who has realized it’s time to give up their old PDA. If you want to see this device before you buy, it’s available in many Best Buy stores. Or you can get it off the Web.

Related Articles on Brighthand:

• Dell Streak Review
• Dell Streak Tablet Phone To Get Android OS 2.2 in the Near Future

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Many people are very excited about this launch, most of them because they think there’s finally a tablet computer on the market that’s capable of getting real work done. Generally speaking, this group has dismissed Apple’s rival iPad tablet as being much too limited for anything useful. (I feel comfortable making this generalization because there are people in my company who feel this same way.)

Speaking as someone who has gone on several business trips carrying an iPad instead of a laptop, I have to disagree with this basic premise. The iPad is more than a toy, and is quite capable of standing up to the HP Slate in a head-to-head competition.

When deciding between these two, you have to ask yourself, do you absolutely need the full power of Windows or can you get by with the slightly lesser capabilities of the iOS? Keep in mind when making this decision, the Windows-based tablet offers slower performance, a higher price, and shorter battery life, while the iPad has very quick performance, an affordable price, and long battery life.

Design
When talking about tablets, the screen is obviously very important, as these devices are basically just screens with cases around them.

The HP Slate has an 8.9-inch, 1024 x 600 display, while the iPad has a larger, higher-resolution one:  9.7-inch and 1024 x 768. Both support multi-touch. Early reviews of HP’s screen indicate that it’s not a responsive as Apple’s.

The Slate is generally smaller than the iPad, but it’s thicker and weighs the same.

• HP Slate: 9.2 x 5.9 inches, 0.6 inches, and 1.5 pounds 
• Apple iPad: 9.6 x 7.5 x 0.5 inches and 1.5 pounds

Obviously, neither of these devices has a built-in keyboard, but if you wish you can connect an external one. The iPad has to use Bluetooth for this, but the Slate has a USB slot.

Otherwise you are using the on-screen keyboard. The iPad’s is surprisingly useful, but early reviewers have not been kind to the Slate’s, saying that it’s small enough that it requires a stylus to accurately hit keys.

Performance
The HP Slate runs Windows 7 on a 1.86 GHz Intel Atom Z540 processor. This device has been out for such a short time there’s aren’t any in-depth reviews yet, so exactly what it’s performance will be like hasn’t been established. That said, the Atom Z series was developed to emphasize battery life over performance, so it’s safe to safe to say that the Slate won’t be blazing fast.

The iPad, on the other hand, is blazing fast. It uses a stripped-down operating system that can run well on significantly slower processors than it has. Apps open virtually instantaneously, the device awakens from sleep in a heartbeat — everything is quick, quick, quick.

At this point, the iPad has a significant performance disadvantage: most apps can’t run in the background. But Apple’s going to change this next month with the release of iOS 4.2. This will also add support for wireless printing.

Internet Access
Apple’s tablet has an outstanding web browser which handles the basic task of rendering web pages as well as any Windows browser.  True, it lacks support for Adobe Flash, but web sites are increasingly turning to HTML5 for streaming video – YouTube and DailyMotion, for example.

The iPad has decent email software. You can easily check your personal or work email through either a dedicated app or through a Web interface. Still, it’s weak when it comes to attaching multiple files as attachments.

Social networking gets more popular every day, and the iPad can update any service I can think of.

Because the HP Slate runs Windows 7, it allows you to run whatever browser you want, as well as use any email app your heart desires. I’m looking forward to a comparison between the browsing speeds of the Slate and the iPad. I suspect they’ll be close.

While we’re on the topic, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that while both devices offer Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, some versions of the iPad include support for 3G cellular-wireless networking, something that’s not an option for the Slate. Still, Slate users are able to hook up a wireless broadband card — not possible with its rival.

Getting Work Done
For you business users, there are a range of quite capable Microsoft Office suites available for Apple’s tablet, allowing you to work with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. These generally cost $30 or less.

Slate users obviously have the option of getting Microsoft Office, but keep in mind this software isn’t bundled with HP’s device, so you’re going to be out at least $100.

If you need a Windows device to run a propriety application your company has developed, obviously you’re going to have to get HP’s device. But that’s a special circumstance.

Having Fun
When on a trip, many people spend much of my time in transit reading. For this, the iPad is a better option than an actual paper book. I can bring along two or three books with no hassle, and even buy more in a few minutes if I run out.

Of course, the same is true of the HP Slate, but not a laptop. I read a book on a laptop once. Once.

Should you want to watch a movie when on the go the iPad is a good option. Storage capacity depends on which model you have, but even the smallest is sufficient for carry along 2 or 3 full-length movies. That’s probably enough for all but the most serious movie junkie. True, you have to go through the hassle of converting these ahead of time, but you’ll have to do that with the HP device, too.

The Slate’s USB port and SD slot allow you to easily carry around additional movies, but the smaller, lower-resolution screen means they won’t look as good.

If you’re a gamer, there are more titles available in the App Store than I think any one person could ever play in their lifetime. This is an area where the HP Slate and iPad probably come out even, but keep in mind, many PC games have been designed for use with a keyboard and mouse.

Camera
The HP Slate includes and VGA webcam on its front and a 3 megapixel camera on it back for stills and video.

Apple’s tablet, on the other hand, includes neither. The front-facing camera is the only one of these I think is a serious lack, as using FaceTime would be nice.

Battery Life
Based on my long experience with laptops, I’m willing to bet money that HP’s promise that its tablet can go 5+ hours on a single charge is fiction. It’s more likely to be somewhere south of 4 hours in real-world conditions.

On the other hand, one of the real strengths of the iPad is its battery life. In my daily use, I find that Apple’s assertion that this device has 8 hours of battery life is possibly a bit low. If I’m just reading an ebook, it can go over 12 hours.

If you want details, HP’s device has a 30 WHr battery, while the iPad has a 25 WHr one.

Price
The iPad starts at $500 for the version with 16 GB of storage – that’s the most popular option. If you want a 64 GB version with 3G, you have to put down $830.

The HP Slate costs $800. For that price you get 64 GB of storage and no 3G. You do get a cradle, though.

Conclusion
My intent with this wasn’t to convince everyone to get an iPad. I’m well aware that the HP Slate is a better option for some people.

What I set out do is make people realize that Apple’s tablet is far more than just a toy or an over-sided iPod — it’s a good option for those who want a very useful, portable, and affordable computer when they are on the go.

It certainly stands up well against the first Windows 7-powered tablet — something that HP seems to be aware of, as it’s not going to put the Slate in retail stores next to the iPad.

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The Pre 2 is going to be a moderately updated version of its predecessor. It will have the same basic design, but with a faster processor and a few other tweaks.

To understand my unhappiness with this device, you only have to look back at the fate of the original Pre, a smartphone that sold so poorly that it forced Palm to do something it had been hoping to avoid: sell itself to HP.

Great Software, Bad Hardware
What makes this situation frustrating is that HP has a great product: the webOS. But this operating system is being totally hobbled by bad hardware.

The Pre doesn’t offer two of the most important features customers are looking for these days: a large screen and/or a keyboard that’s easy to type on. And the Pre 2 won’t either. A device with a 3.1-inch HVGA display and a tiny keyboard simply can’t compete.

This model has to go up against the Motorola Droid X, which has a 4.3-inch WVGA display. It also has to face off with the Samsung Epic 4G, which has a keyboard about twice the size of Pre’s.

Palm should have tossed out the entire design for the Pre and gone with a slider with a landscape-oriented keyboard and a screen that’s at least 3.5 inches… and preferably larger.

Looking Ahead
There’s little room for doubt that the Palm Pre 2 is going to be a dud, but I still have hope for the future of the webOS.

Rahul Sood, the head of HP’s gaming business, has become the company’s chief evangelist for this platform. He said recently that HP “is committed to delivering webOS on a wide range of devices” over the next twelve months.

Sood went on to say, “The stuff that excites me the most are the new form factors.” I have to agree with him, I’m also excited about seeing the webOS running on devices other than the Pre 2.

Palm did a great job with the webOS. It’s both very powerful and easy to use. I’m looking forward to the day it’s not hobbled by a small screen and an almost unusable keyboard.

Related Articles on Brighthand:

• HP Unveils the Palm Pre 2 
• HP Exec Promises a Wide Range of webOS Devices

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If you look back to the turn of the century. Palm and HP were bitter rivals. HP made the iPAQ line using Microsoft’s Pocket PC operating system (later renamed Windows Mobile) and Palm made handhelds with its own Palm OS.

For a long time, Palm was winning this battle. Its PDAs were cheaper and better than its rival’s were. Palm was riding high on its success, and the future looked bright. What a difference a decade makes. 

Years went by and the market shifted from PDAs to phones, and for a while it looked like Palm had successfully made the transition. Around the middle of this decade, its Treo models were some of the best-selling smartphones.

But Palm fumbled. It was incapable of updating its operating system, and customers eventually got tired of buying devices that hadn’t advanced in any meaningful way in years.

In the mean time, Apple totally shook up the market with the release of the first iPhone in 2007. And Google introduced the Android OS the next year, while poor old Palm was still shipping models based on an operating system released in 2001.

In 2009, it looked like Palm had finally gotten its act together. It released the first models based on the newly-created webOS to much praise from reviewers. Unfortunately, Palm was just too late. Customers wanted iPhones and Droids, and had no interest in Palm’s Pre and Pixi. Sales were well below expectations, and the company eventually had to put itself up for sale.

In the mean time, HP hadn’t done much better. It’s iPAQ line had been a dominant player in the PDA market, but HP didn’t successfully make the jump to smartphones. The company hasn’t had a model that was an important player in years.

But the two companies’ overall situations are totally different because HP has a very profitable line of laptops, PCs, and printers, while Palm’s entire fortunes lay in its smartphones. That’s why HP can afford to buy Palm, who otherwise was headed for the junkheap.

Moving Forward
HP has made it clear that it acquired Palm to get its hands on the webOS. Todd Bradley, the head of HP’s Personal Systems Group, said “Palm’s innovative operating system provides an ideal platform to expand HP’s mobility strategy.”

The company intends to make smartphones and tablets running the webOS, but executives haven’t yet revealed any specific plans for new devices.

Related Articles on Brighthand:

• Palm Is Now Part of HP
• Palm Promises New webOS Devices Are on the Way

This isn’t very realistic. The reason the iPad runs the iPhone OS and not Mac OS X is because Apple couldn’t make a device the size and price of the iPad with a 10-hour battery life running a desktop operating system. The same holds true of Windows.

Here’s the thumb-rule I use:

• Power, size, battery life, price – Pick any three.

With the iPad, Apple picked size, battery life, and price, but to get these it had to sacrifice power. That’s why this affordable computer runs a stripped-down OS designed for a smartphone, not a desktop.

Think about another Apple product that took a different tack. With the MacBook Air, Apple choose power, and size, and tried to compromise on battery life and price. So it’s a small, powerful computer that costs three times what the iPad does and has less than half the battery life.

What Do You Want in Your Windows Tablet?
Many people are hoping HP is still working on a slate-shaped computer with Windows 7, but there are reports that this may have been canceled because the company is running into problems with the thumb-rule I gave earlier.

If HP makes an affordable device the size of the iPad running the full version of Windows on a good processor, it’s going to have to sacrifice battery life. With this operating system’s need for a fast processor and no room for a large battery, I estimate such a model would run less than two hours on a single charge.

Based on the early reports I’ve read about this tablet, HP is trying to balance power and battery life. It is going to put in a relatively slow processor in hopes of increasing the time the device can run on a single charge. problem is, this is going to decrease the performance.

I could perhaps see a company making an iPad-like model with Windows, decent performance, and a reasonable battery life, but this device would have the same drawback as the MacBook Air: my guess is such a computer would also cost close to $2000 because it would require some cutting-edge technology.

Other iPad Competitors
Even if HP doesn’t release its Windows-based tablet, there are plenty of iPad-like models in the offing. The ones that have the best odds make the same set of trade-offs that Apple did: sacrificing power to get a low price, good portability, and long battery life.

I’m referring to the collection of tablets running Google’s Android OS that are scheduled for release later this year. Dell is making the best known of these, but HP, MSI, and Google itself are also supposedly hard at work on their own models.

Related Articles:

• Full Specifications List for Dell’s 7-Inch Android OS-Based Tablet Leaks Out (TabletPCReview)
• HP, Dell, and Google Prepping Android OS-Based Tablets (TabletPCReview)