Despite all the hubbub about CEO Mark Hurd, Hewlett-Packard posted great earnings for its quarter and the company confirmed that it will soon have multiple tablets to compete with the Apple iPad.

The company said the Apple iPad may have hurt the sales of some of its laptops but it said a Windows tablet will be coming soon, maybe even as soon as the next few weeks. This device will likely be based on Windows 7 and should target the enterprise market with corporate-friendly features like video conferencing and integration with back-end business databases.

What really gets me excited is that HP also confirmed it will bring out a webOS tablet in early 2011 and this will be a mass-market device. HP spent $1.2 billion to acquire Palm earlier this year and it plans to “double down” on the webOS platform by putting it in a variety of devices like smartphones, tablets and even printers.

I’m a fan of webOS because I think it’s an elegant and beautiful smartphone OS – in fact, it’s probably the best 1.0 version I’ve ever seen. The Palm hardware didn’t do it justice and I think the “cards” user interface metaphor would work extremely well on a big tablet.

Let’s hope the HP webOS tablet has at least a 1 GHz processor, WiFi, GPS, multiple cameras and a few USB ports. I could see 3G being useful but I think tablets will mainly use WiFi connections.

An HP webOS tablet couldn’t come soon enough, as the Apple iPad is gaining some serious momentum – it has sold more than three million units in a few months. We may even see a revamped Apple iPad in time for the holidays.

It’s not just Apple HP has to worry about, as we’re about to see a slew of tablets from companies like Samsung, Research In Motion, Asus, Toshiba and others. We’ve put together a list of the five most-anticipated tablets and you should check it out.

[Via VentureBeat]

Thanks Kevin

That mystery webOS 2.0 device with the codename Roadrunner has been spotted for a second time within the usage stats of another webOS application. Last week, the app logs of a Foursquare app for webOS coughed up a single reference to webOS 2.0 and identified a mystery device with a codename of Roadrunner. This week a second app produced yet another reference to webOS and fingered a second device with the codename Roadrunner HD.

This second and exciting reference is from a gaming app titled Cloud Hopper and adds “HD” to the end of the Roadrunner moniker. Similar to the original leak, this information was gleaned from the usage data provided by Metrix, an analytics package for webOS developers. The Metrix data in this second leak suggests that the Roadrunner HD device sports a 640×960 resolution, which is nice a jump from the 320×480 of the original Roadrunner leak.

Adding some credibility to this rumor is the fact that Cloud Hopper is closed source, making it difficult to spoof the webOS 2.0 and Roadrunner HD user agent strings. The usual warning to take this rumor with a grain of salt applies as we can not verify the authenticity of these claims. Nonetheless, we can’t help but ponder the thought of a high-end webOS smartphone or a smaller-size tablet out in the wild. It is a tantalizing idea, no?

[Via PreCentral and Twitter]

Thanks Kevin

The Palm Pre Plus and the Palm Pixi Plus have both arrived on O2 but are Palm making the same mistake twice or have O2 promised to make an effort to push the device that than saying “you’d be better off with an iPhone”. Mobile New have offered up an article pointing out why Palm remarried the ex-wife that had given they so many problems since their engagement all that time ago:

Palm defends its choice to launch its Pre Plus and Pixie Plus handsets exclusively through O2 but says it may take longer to establish the brand in the UK

US manufacturer Palm has defended its ‘one network’ strategy in the UK despite admitting it will take longer to establish the company’s brand here than in any other European country.

Palm will launch its Pre Plus and Pixie Plus handsets in the UK in the next few days exclusively with O2.

Palm has been dogged by criticism since the release of the Pre last year that launching it through one network has been an error as sales have struggled.

Palm vice president for sales in EMEA Paul Ghent said: "The Palm brand in the UK is still limited and it’s an incredibly crowded market place here. You just have to look at the plethora of devices out there and the number of Android devices around so for the end user it’s pretty confusing.

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Palm, Inc. today announced that the Palm® Pre™ Plus and Palm Pixi™ Plus phones will be available in the UK on O2 from 28 May. They will be available from free in all O2 stores and online at www.o2.co.uk.

“We are excited to bring Pre Plus and Pixi Plus to the market for O2 customers,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm chairman and chief executive officer. “With the choice of these two new Palm webOS phones, customers across the UK can stay connected, so they never miss a thing.”
With a slider keyboard, a large touchscreen and a high-performance processor, Pre Plus is Palm’s full-featured Palm webOS™ phone. It’s designed for people who want an easy-to-use phone with advanced features to help manage the different aspects of their lives, both personal and professional. The keyboard makes for quick and easy typing, while the unique gesture area provides a sleek look and intuitive navigation. Customers also get 16GB(1) of storage (~15GB user available) for applications and media. Pre Plus comes with the Palm Touchstone™ Back Cover, so it’s compatible out of the box with the revolutionary inductive Touchstone Charging Dock (sold separately).

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Introducing the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus phones, coming to O2 on May 28.

The Palm Pre Plus, with its handy slide-out keyboard, really lets you enjoy the business of living. Keep all your apps open and connected. Get business and personal email in one place, answers at your fingertips with universal search, and never miss a thing thanks to notifications.

The Pixi Plus gives you a fixed keyboard as well as a touchscreen, so you can text, IM and email in an instant. Watch videos. Browse your favourite websites. Stay in touch with friends. And personalise your phone with interchangeable back covers.

Whichever you prefer, both are amazingly powerful yet simple to use, making it easy and fun to stay connected and ahead¹, and both organise all your contacts and calendars into one place so you’re always up to date.

And you can run your favourite apps – like Facebook^®, Yell.com, RadioTime and Grooveshark – on Pre Plus and Pixi Plus. With over 1000 available and more added each week, chances are you’ll find the ones you want.

Palm has countered claims made by Carphone Warehouse and O2 staff that sales of the Pre were a “disaster.”

The Palm Pre is exclusive to O2, and has recently been made free on all 18-month tariffs from £30 upwards.

A Palm spokesperson said: “We acknowledge a few minor quality issues with in-store demos at launch, but these were dealt with quickly. Sales are in line with expectations.”

Palm has since been purchased by IT manufacturer HP for $1.2 billion (£788 million).

Palm Pre sales have been a disaster, claim staff in O2 and Carphone Warehouse stores. This follows news that Palm is to be put up for sale. Many stores have registering zero sales.
An O2 spokesperson said: “Palm Pre sales are in line with our expectations.”

But one store manager said “Our store has sold hardly any Palm Pres, It never stood a chance against the iPhone and they both advertise themselves as doing the same things”.

A Carphone staffer added: “It is a good device but it doesn’t really have a place in the market. No one knows who Palm is.  So Nokia, Sony Ericsson and the iPhone will always be preferred.”

The Pre is available exclusively on O2 contracts. It was also launched on a premium £35 per month tariff but has since become free on all tariffs to “shift stock” staff claim. According to O2 forums, sales were so low many smaller stores stopped selling the Pre. Other shop staff have reported software and hardware issues including freezing, poor battery life, and faults with its slide track.

Given that O2 has sold the Palm Pre as successfully as you would a knife in the chest it’s nice to see Palm releasing the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus on dual networks in Germanland. Vodafone will hopefully give the little phones some much needed attention and will hopefully shift a few more than you could expect from O2.

One can only hope for a similar release in the UK and more Palm in more … paws. Honestly, I walked past the O2 store yesterday and there was a short queue of 3 at the Palm stand. On the other side of the stop was one person looking at the iPhone and two sales representatives explaining the great many things the iPhone could do. Never before was there a more glaring example of O2 dedication to the little Palm Underdog.

There are still rumours running rampant that Palm is going to be taken over. First it was Lenovo, now its HTC. The latest rumours mention those two companies as potential suitors for Palm. According to Reuters, Palm’s stock soared earlier this week as investors covered short positions on renewed speculation that the smartphone maker might be an acquisition target.

April 5th, 2010 – SPB Software, a leading mobile applications and games developer announces the release of SPB TV for webOS. This is the very first application from SPB Software for this eye candy Linux-based mobile operating system. SPB TV is a mobile IPTV viewer with TV-like usability,  designed for tuning in to publicly available digital TV channels from all over the world.
SPB TV features exclusive and patent-pending usability innovations and gives the mobile subscribers easy access to over a hundred and twenty of international TV channels, directly from their phones. The application supports must-have TV features, such as a TV browser with quick channel previews, an instantly accessible TV guide for all offered channels, quick channel switching and more.

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