Posted by The Blogging Desk on Thu, Feb 10, 2011
Palm:
Today we’re sharing not just some cool product news (getting to it in a second…), but a vision for HP webOS. Companies talk about visions all the time – “today we’re going to share our vision for the first chocolate-covered portable snowblower” – but what we’re sharing today is more than just some exciting new products (yes, yes – in a moment).
Over time, you can expect HP webOS to become part of your entire mobile experience, not just your phone. With our announcements today (almost there), you can get a taste of that vision with webOS products available in three new flavors: small, medium, and large.
So, the cat was let out of the bag yesterday afternoon in a long, two hour event where HP announced the next steps of their newly purchased webOS products. Notice how I didn't say "Palm". In fact, from what I read of the event, I don't even think "Palm" was even on the products at all. Ah, well. So sad. I loved me some Palm!
With that said, the HP TouchPad is all webOS, so it's not some poor overlay over top of a Windows tablet that never looks good and hurts peoples hearts and souls. Not only that, but they also announced a brand new phone, and also the newest version of the Pre, now dubbed the HP Pre 3.
The most interesting part about the entire event was that they made mention that they see webOS as going to not only printers, but also desktop computers. Whaaaaaaa???
Is the beginning of the end for Windows & HP as longtime friends? They've already kicked Windows to the curb on their tablet side. They were shown at last year's CES as making "the" Windows tablet but then it never came out.
I wonder where this leaves Microsoft as now, not only were they late to the new smartphone game, but now they are completely behind in the tablet space. A space which they practically started! Good thing Trigon has experience in setting up just about any business with whatever mobile infrastructure they want.
Posted by The Blogging Desk on Fri, Jan 28, 2011
- by Eoin, "The Natural", Beck
PreCentral:
Consumer Maket Research Analyst and VP Research Director of Data at Forrester Reineke Reitsma provides an interesting report on the state of Enterprise support for mobile OSes in 2010. Citing the Enterprise and SMB Networks and Telecommunications Survey, which polled over 2000 enterprise executives in Europe and North America, Reitsma notes significant year-over-year changes in device support, going from nonexistant to 8% support for webOS, and an increase from 2% to 11% for Android. It’s also interesting to see that despite RIM’s utter dominance in this sector with 70% representation, there are still eight other OSes maintaining support, with five of them showing growth. And if you need more proof of just how different the enterprise market is, look no further than Windows Mobile, which maintained it’s 41% despite a palpable sense of stagnation in the consumer sector.
I also read an article about how Deutche Bank's pilot program to replace Blackberry with iPhones and iPad's has been successful. They're using Good as their email client. I use Good for my corporate email and it's an ok product on the iPhone but with no true multitasking, it's a little bit slow in opening up email. Also, it does alert on new email, but it only does a push notification message for meeting alerts (not email).
Good runs much better on Android, due to the support for background processes and better notifications. The downside to that is it's a battery hog. In fact, when I had an HTC Incredible, it killed the battery in a few hours because it wouldn't allow the phone to go into a sleep mode. I think Good fixed that bug in a later release but it highlights a bigger issue with Android in the enterprise. Because each manufacturer puts a software layer on top of Android (and in many cases the Carrier also includes a buch of crap ware you can't delete) there are way more potential sources for software bugs that can cripple the device. From my experience, the Android way is to have amazing functionality that starts out half baked and have the users be beta testers. To some extent, it's that way with all mobile OS's, but Android seems to be the worst at it.
Mark my words….If Good puts out a webOS client and HP puts out some compelling hardware and makes webOS a viable platform for mobile developers, webOS will soon be one of the top mobile OS's. In many ways it's the best mobile OS that I've used and it's one hell of a lot more polished than Android is right now and it's one of the easiest to develop for. Trigon strives to make sure its clients are using the best software possible in the mobile space, so be sure to contact us if you'd like us to help.
Posted by The Blogging Desk on Tue, Oct 19, 2010
Engadget:
As for Pre 2 itself? Little is being revealed at the moment, but we're told to expect a 1GHz CPU, a five megapixel camera (LED flash, extended depth of field, geotagging, and video capture), glass display and a "sleeker, streamlined design" that still combines a touchpanel with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. In other words, it's a faster, slimmer Pre, and some would argue it's what the Pre Plus should've been. At any rate, SFR customers in France will get first dibs on Friday, with Verizon and an undisclosed carrier in Canada scheduled to get it "in the coming months." Oh, and as for US-based developers? They'll be able to purchase unlocked UMTS versions of the Pre 2 (!) in their homeland, though pricing remains elusive.
A very strange launch for the newest Palm product in a very long time. Just a press release? Even then, it's marginally updated hardware. This is going to be the first Palm phone sold under the new HP banner, and it sounds like the phone is being branded as the "Palm Pre 2", while the OS is now called the "HP webOS 2.0". Not at all confusing.
When I had gotten a Palm Pre Plus for a week thanks to a friend inside of Palm, it was running very compelling software. The hardware was really dragging the phone down, however. I remember just booting the phone took over 2 minutes. That's slower than most computers. Integration for mobile enterprise users was great, which is always a plus in my book. And also the book of an IT Support company serving the Philadelphia area. My exchange accounts connected with ease, and thanks to the notifications inside of the phones OS, getting emails and texts was very unobtrusive. When compared to the Pre's notification system, the iPhone looks like a cardboard cutout. That's no hyperbole.
It's great that Palm or HP, or whoever, is putting out new webOS phones, but it would be even better if they put out brand new hardware to match. Wishful thinking, HPalm?
Does your IT staff balk at your usage of an, but underpowered webOS phone? We can help, we also give out free high 5's!
