Wishful Thinking in Palo Alto
I’m reading through Engadget‘s liveblog of HP’s big “Think Beyond” webOS event, and this picture really says a thousand words.
Look closely and you’ll see that HP’s Jon Rubinstein is claiming that in the “2011 OS Bowl,” Windows Phone 7 beats iOS, that webOS beats Android, and the two winners will battle it out for market domination… and webOS wins!
In 2010, webOS commanded 1.3% of the smartphone market. That’s about 1/15th of either Apple’s or Android’s share. Now, HP does look to have some nice devices coming out this year, including a smart looking tablet with a “planned availability” sometime this summer — three months or longer after iPad 2 and Xoom 1 hit the shelves.
So if I had to guess, I’d say consumers are already thinking beyond webOS. Way beyond.
I was originally going to go to this event, but my work schedule didn’t permit it.
That said, I have the original Pre, and I still like it, but… when the Pre first was demo’ed, it was much more advanced than what was on the market. But by the time it shipped, it wasn’t. It was just another smartphone that wasn’t an iPhone.
I hope HP doesn’t repeat this when the new phones and tablets. They need to outperform the Android market, at a lower price, if they want to get out of their narrow niche.
I think every single bracket in that entire “tournament” was won by the OS with the lower market share.
What this guy said:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Sorry-But-HPs-TouchPad-Is-No-siliconalley-3529300584.html?x=0&.v=5