HP CEO vows webOS to hit 100m devices

HP chief Leo Apotheker in his major strategy briefing on Monday outlined an aggressive plan for webOS. He expected that the TouchPad and smartphones like the Pre3 and Veer would all be shipping by June and would be part of "wave after wave" of releases. HP eventually hoped to ship 100 million webOS devices, although Apotheker didn't say when this would happen.

Plans for webOS on PCs would see a beta available by the end of 2011, he said. The full rollout is due sometime in 2012.

The goal is ambitious for HP, which took over Palm at a time when its share was shrinking and has since dipped to about four percent in the US. However, it has committed itself to the platform and plans to get it even into devices where a mobile OS is still rare, such as in printers. Palm is widely believed to have suffered from a lack of money and scale that forced it to pursue only limited deals and limited the reach of its marketing.

Apple only just reached 100 million iPhones shipped this month, but it reached the figure for all iOS hardware last year.

The TouchPad, Pre3 and Veer will be virtually the only major mobile devices beyond Apple and RIM to have both the OS and hardware under its control, and the technique is allowing unique tricks, such as special apps that run when a device is on its Touchstone dock or the option of pushing a website from a webOS phone to the TouchPad to read it on the larger screen, solely by moving the two devices close together.

By Electronista Staff

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iPhone, computers, industry, gadgets, HP, BlackBerry, RIM, mobile phones, Apple, webOS, Pre, iPad, PlayBook, Veer, TouchPad