We’ve heard rumors of a webOS tablet for some time – so far, no release date was available.
Engadget now claims the following:
…we’re now hearing from several trusted sources that it’ll be calendar Q1 2011. We’re told Personal Systems Group VP Todd Bradley mentioned the date during an all-hands employee meeting yesterday, and that the project is indeed known internally as “Hurricane.
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As of this writing, not much more is known – stay tuned for further info as we get it!
Even though I had no major issues with Handango during my tenure at a large Palm OS house, the reputation of neither PalmGear nor Handango is excessively good. When the two entities combined, many expected a Murphy’s Law-type effect(Moron + Moron = 2 Moron). And indeed, Murphy was right.
A few developer colleagues of mine have now been given statements similar to the one below:
Handango has advised us that Handango’s unaudited accounting records indicate that Handango may have owed you as much as $ 416.70 on February 15, 2010. Our preliminary review of these records indicate that some of these amounts have been outstanding for several years. While we have begun the process of verifying these records, posting payments and credits, identifying offsets, counterclaims and other deductions and determining whether certain payment obligations have lapsed, we have not yet completed that process. Because our review covers several years of invoices, checks, electronic payments and other data, we do not expect to complete this process for some time.
To expedite payment to you and to avoid the costs associated with a comprehensive review of all of Handango’s records relating to these liabilities, PocketGear is offering to pay you $ 41.67 in full and complete satisfaction of all amounts that PocketGear or Handango may owe you for goods and services provided or sold prior to February 15, 2010.
Even though I fully agree that this is not the “fine English way of doing business”, it IMHO shows more tragedy than evilness on the side of the distributor in question.
After all, it would have been highly improbable that any developer would ever have found out about the difference. Let’s be 100% honest here: had Handango pocketed the cash silently, this article wouldn’t be written.
Don’t ask me what is going on here – but a payment processor having unaudited records dating back years definitely is a disturbing sign…
Given that its a somewhat slow news day, staff changes at Palm’s parent company make for welcome bits of content to keep the news site spinning 
.
HP’s CEO Mark Hurd has just stepped down. CNet News reports the following email, which was sent to all employees:
This is to advise you that Mark Hurd, chairman and CEO of HP, has resigned from the company effective immediately. Mark’s resignation was submitted at the request of the company’s board of directors as a result of inappropriate behavior in which he engaged that violated HP’s Standards of Business Conduct and undermined his ability to continue to lead the company.
At the request of the board, I have agreed to serve as interim CEO until a new, permanent CEO is hired. During this time I also will continue to perform my duties as CFO. The board has formed a committee to undertake a search for a new CEO, and candidates from inside the company as well as outside the company will be considered. I have informed the board, however, that I do not wish to be considered for the role of permanent CEO, and I have removed myself from being a candidate for that position.
While this news is unexpected, HP remains in an exceptionally strong position both financially and in the marketplace. It is essential, however, that we remain focused and continue to achieve–if not exceed–our operational and financial objectives.
Because there is likely to be considerable media coverage of this announcement during the next few days, I wanted to be the first to share the facts with you.
Mark’s resignation followed an internal investigation into a claim of sexual harassment asserted against Mark and HP by a woman who is former contractor to HP. The investigation was conducted by outside counsel in conjunction with HP’s general counsel’s office and was overseen by the board. Based on the investigation it was determined that the former contractor’s claim of sexual harassment was not supported by the facts.
The investigation did reveal, however, that Mark had engaged in other inappropriate conduct. Specifically, based on the facts that were gathered it was found that Mark had failed to disclose a close personal relationship he had with the contractor that constituted a conflict of interest, failed to maintain accurate expense reports, and misused company assets. Each of these constituted a violation of HP’s Standards of Business Conduct (PDF), and together they demonstrated a profound lack of judgment that significantly undermined Mark’s credibility and his ability to effectively lead HP.
As we regularly remind all employees, each of us is expected to adhere strictly to the Standards of Business Conduct in all of our business dealings and relationships. This expectation applies with even greater force to HP’s CEO and other senior executives who, given their positions, must set the highest standard for professional and personal conduct. The investigation that was conducted revealed that Mark had failed to meet this standard.
We recognize that this change of leadership is unexpected news. We also know that HP’s success in recent years is due to the collective efforts and hard work of more than 300,000 talented employees who have formulated far-reaching strategies and achieved our objectives better than anyone else in the industry.
On Monday morning we will conduct an all-employee Webcast to discuss this matter further and answer your questions. To join the Webcast please click on this link.
In closing, I would like to thank each of you for your contributions to HP and to ask that in the weeks and months to come we do everything to ensure that HP’s future, like its past, is one of innovation, operational excellence, and the delivery of world-class products and services.
All the best.
Cathie
Not much to add here…
When it comes to app stores, every big platform now has one. However, individual developers tend to have a hard time “comparing”, as the usually tend to focus on one or two stores and thus end up with “slanted” numbers.
Market research house ABI Research now provides the following chart:
Unfortunately, the company also predicts falling revenues to to the increasing availability of free or ad-funded substitutes for must-have apps.
Do you folks agree?
Call it strange, call it weird, call it whatever – but it looks like HP’s printers are on the way to becoming “workstations” of their own.
Mobile Business Briefing now reports the following:
Hewlett-Packard (HP) has outlined plans to use its recently-acquired webOS platform to power a whole range of devices beyond smartphones, including printers. “This isn’t strictly focused on the tablet,” Shane Robison, HP’s chief strategy and technology officer, told Reuters this week. “We’re going to have printers, even some printers that have detachable, smaller slate devices on them.”
As of this writing, not much more is known – stay tuned for further info as we get it!
When it comes to analyzing device usage scenarios, market research firms can provide extremely valuable insights to analysts and the media in general.
Nielsen, which is one of the largest research firms in the world, has just shared the following figures:
Looking at the mobile “clock” shows that good keyboards are worthwhile and important – find out more via the URL below:
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/ …
Samsung’s OLED production division has been in the news a lot over the last few weeks – its supply shortages have motivated HTC to ditch its AMOLED technology. Pantech, number 3 vendor in Korea, now follows suite.
Korea Herald reports the following:
Pantech, Korea’s No. 3 handset maker, will not use AM-OLED displays in its new smartphones to be launched in the first half of next year because of a shortage of the component, an executive told The Korea Herald.
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He said Samsung Mobile Display, the sole supplier of AM-OLEDs, is not even able to keep up with demand from Samsung Electronics, its parent company, because of limited capacity, combined with surging demand
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Given that the latest batch of AMOLED displays has an uneven pixel pitch (making them not ideal for business applications), I don’t see too much an issue with this.
P.S. Keep in mind that all kinds of OLED displays failed to play out a significant advantage against high-quality LCD displays in our testing…
Image: Samsung Wave, with AMOLED display
First of all, a big apology for our delay in reviewing the Aceeca PDA32 – we were forced to halt the review due to overload, but will continue it shortly.
In the mean time, the tidbit below from Aceeca could be interesting for the PDA32 faithful:
… the PDA32 currently supports 64Mbytes of RAM (although capable of 128Mbytes of RAM and might be loaded in the near future). As I said before ~38Mbytes is available as the storage heap (the place where apps are stored), the rest if for the system and apps to use. This is thus the number I think you are looking for.
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Our model has 64MB fitted – stay tuned for further info as we get it!
Given that I use a netbook whenever I travel (fits everywhere, weighs nothing), investing a bit of time and effort into simplifying things can pay out big time. My latest optimization involved changing the web browser from Firefox to Opera…and I can but recommend you all to make the switch.
My MSI Wind U100 netbook is more CPU- than RAM-constrained (I have 1500MB); which means that a web browser’s CPU consumption is the key deciding factor when it comes to system performance.
For me, Opera has performed significantly better than Firefox. Lags when scrolling are now non-existent, even when in power save mode and on the most complex pages!
Unfortunately, this luxury of speed comes with a significant price: memory usage. Irregardless of operating configuration, I have found Opera to consume about four times the memory of Firefox…finding 600MB of RAM assigned to Opera is something I have seen quite often.
As these devices tend to be too limited to run two complex applications at the same time, however, this is less of a problem than one may initially assume. For me, the best netbook browser thus is Opera.
Of course, all those of you who use a 2GB development machine with a dual or quad core CPU are better advised with Firefox, as it will leave more RAM free for other tasks…
Feedback, anyone?
If a device sells badly, manufacturers try to create “special editions” to stimulate sales.
Palm’s m505 was one of the worst Palm handhelds ever – and Oliver W Leibenguth now managed to get his hands onto the critter below:
He relays the following story:
Back in 2001, the MMS communication AG ordered 100 m505 in a 24carat gold plated case. Units sold for like 1500 Euros a piece.
Not much to add here…except that Oliver’s blog is totally worth following if for the pictures alone…
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