Did HP Do the TouchPad a Favor by Killing webOS?
The big tech news this week involves HP announcing plans to exit the hardware business and focus instead on enterprise software. HP will be spinning off its PC business, and is dropping webOS altogether, possibly licensing it to another manufacturer.
Along with this announcement, HP dropped prices of its TouchPad tablet to $99 for the 16GB model and $149 for the 32GB model. The sale price sparked rush purchases across the US, UK and other parts of the world where the TouchPad was sold.
HP TouchPad to Run Android & Ubuntu Linux
Now the bigger piece of news here is that while the TouchPad is considered a dead platform in terms of webOS, developers are starting to tweak the hardware to run other operating systems, notably Android and Ubuntu Linux. So far, hackers have been successful at installing Ubuntu, and an Android Gingerbread port is underway. Will Android and Ubuntu Linux be the saving grace for the HP TouchPad? Has HP done its own TouchPad a favor in terms of sales and desirability by killing off webOS? People are calling it the best $99 tablet ever. With Android coming soon, it’s going to be even better.
In other news …
Facebook on a startup buying spree
Facebook is facing tough competition from newcomer Google+. The company is therefore on the lookout for more startups with interesting ideas, and is set to acquire 20 companies this year (double last year’s 10). These will include talent and products related to design, user interface and mobile services. Do you (or your app) have what it takes to be a Facebook acqusition?
Google Chrome OS Does Windows
Google’s Chromebooks are trying to attract enterprise markets by offering a leasing scheme, with Chromebooks for $28 per month. But the latest Chrome OS build supports Citrix Receiver, which gives virtualization access to users. This means Chromebook users can run Windows apps through an enterprise Citrix server. For people who are worrying about having to adjust to Linux (or the Chromebook interface), this might help with the decision to go full-on with the cloud.
Marketing professionals are targeting you via email
Marketers are increasingly targeting their campaigns through tailor-fit messages. And while social networks are becoming more and more popular, marketers still prefer sending out email messages, since these are more direct and evoke more action from the recipients. If you’re an online marketing pro, what have you been doing to improve the performance of your campaigns?
Google App Inventor Decommissioned
Meanwhile, back on the Android front, Google is reportedly deprecating App Inventor, which used to be an easy wasy to create applications through a GUI interface. Time to brush up on our programming skills?
