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HP is planning to put WebOS onto every PC it sells in 2012 in an attempt to attract developers to the platform, not to mention selling HP as a provider of cloud services. The promise came during a presentation to Indian staff by Leo Apotheker, observed by Bloomberg, during which the CEO said that WebOS will be installed on …

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  1. Thomas 4

    Sounds interesting

    My IT skills are a little fuzzy when it comes to embedded platforms, etc - does this mean a HP lappy could dual boot between Windows and WebOS? That could be really fun for trying it out with the questionable safety net of Win 7 as back up.

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    1. Chemist
      Reply Icon

      It depends

      It could dual boot just as Windows & Linux can now or it could run WebOS in WIndows (or Linux) using VirtualBox just as either can now. WebOS in any case is just basically Linux

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  2. Bassey

    Re: sounds interesting

    > does this mean a HP lappy could dual boot between Windows and WebOS?

    No, that was my first impression too but it sounds a lot more mundane. As part of the crapware HP installs on all the Windows PCs it ships you will basically get an app that is a webos virtual machine. This will allow you to install and run webos apps from within windows.

    I can't imagine many businesses being too happy that their work pcs are turning up with a VM installed that connects to an online marketplace. Although, of course, most businesses wipe their PCs the second they arrive on the bench though that would limit the effectives of HPs attempt to put webos on every pc it sells.

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    1. John 62
      Reply Icon

      businesses wiping PCs

      depends on the destination/volume of PCs

      I was involved in rolling out 30+ Dell PCs once. We had the option of sending our own image to Dell and they would install it for us. In the end we had too much of a mix of images so we just did it on site, but the point remains that you don't _have_ to install your own image as soon as you get the PC.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re

        Other than the image wipe thing, most companies filter web traffic anyway. I'm sure web app stores would be treated just the same as web shopping, youtube, etc.

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  3. John 62

    Apotheker is ex-SAP

    And if I'm not misrepresenting things, SAP has a bit of a 'we hate MS' culture.

    Apart from that, it's very interesting. webOS is obviously native on ARM. Windows 8 will be released for ARM. Should Intel be worried that they could lose one of their larger customers?

    How will consumers react? Will they even be aware that there is a second OS?

    One thing I would like for iOS apps is try-before-you-buy via the iTunes Store on the desktop. would this enable it for webOS apps aimed at mobile devices?

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    1. Ilgaz
      Reply Icon

      SAP doesn't hate MS

      SAP supports Windows and it is sole reason for big ass windows sales for MS. I mean the 32 CPU+ giant windows server machines.

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  4. yossarianuk
    Linux

    At last - 2012 the year of the Linux desktop

    Maybe webOS is when Linux will make the mainstream

    2012 - year of the Linux desktop!

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Joke

      Re

      2012... didn't the Mayans say something about this?

      2 1
      1. gafisher
        Reply Icon
        Gates Horns

        Mayan Prophecies

        Sure, but who knew the prophecies referred to Redmond?

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  5. Inachu
    Heart

    WEBOS????????????

    I prefer the OS in the BIOS.

    I like the gate software on Asus motherboards and boot into this tiny OS where I can browse the internet without logging into Windows.

    It is like a breath of fresh air really.

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Well, well, well, what do we have here!

    It seems HP has grown a pair of shiny new big balls but I'm pretty sure Microsoft will take care of this singlehandedly as soon as they'll find out about it.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      "Microsoft will take care of this singlehandedly .."

      Or maybe not

      "For the times they are a changin'"

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Gates Horns

        Oh, really?

        Just look a this gem :

        http:// techrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/px03112.pdf

        it's an eye-opening US court document

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        1. Battsman
          Reply Icon
          Alert

          A little more detail please?

          AC - I tend to avoid opening PDFs posted via random URLs on comment forums (too many adobe exploits out there). Care to perhaps define the content a little better for those of us with an inherrent distrust of our fellow man?

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          1. yossarianuk
            Reply Icon

            Suggestion

            Yes I have one - don't use Adobe products to view .pdf.

            On a sensible OS there's loads of choices (i.e the default KDE or Gnome .pdf readers) non of which seem constantly prone to serious major vulnerabilities.

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            1. Anonymous Coward
              Reply Icon
              Anonymous Coward

              @Yossarian

              >Yes I have one - don't use Adobe products to view .pdf.

              That's not really sound advice; given one area Adobe really have led the field is in bringing cross-platform vulnerabilities to the massive.

              Only guaranteed way of safely viewing a PDF is printed. Classic Catch-22 appropriately enough.

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              1. Anonymous Coward
                Reply Icon
                Coat

                @AC 10th March 01:10 GMT

                Cross-platform but the payload is still Windows only. you didn't notice, did you ?

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          2. Anonymous Coward
            Reply Icon
            Gates Horns

            @Battsman

            Good habit when you're running Windows! Actually in order to be safe, you should just turn the damn thing off completely.

            Here's the non-pdf version :

            http:// techrights.org/2009/01/30/microsoft-intel-anti-linux/

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    2. Bad Beaver
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      huh?

      Who is this Microsoft you are talking about and why should anyone care?

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  7. Christian Berger

    Signed code is not a security feature

    Unfortunately HP doesn't seem to have noticed that.

    Other than that, it's just obvious to run your browser in a virtual machine.

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  8. Nathan 6
    WTF?

    BeOS

    Be OS finally returns to desktop?

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  9. John F***ing Stepp

    Right, Evil from the eighth dimension and all.

    The last time I downloaded a printer driver from this company I had to reload windows.

    Strike that, I had to wipe the hard drive and reload windows and back ups.

    I am certainly going to trust a WebOs from these incompetent f*ckups.

    But no, I am not bitter; no not at all.

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