HP buys Palm

So, HP buys Palm. I think this interesting in many ways. For one thing it will help us people that believe in the web as a the platform. 


If you intend to get serious about making mobile internet devices and you do not want to give up control to, say, Google then the Palm WebOS is a good bet and may prove to be a winning strategy for HP.


The trend is clear in that the web application model is evolving by the minute. There is a huge amount of activity going on in W3C and in the buzzing communities around on the web.


With the WebOS, HP is very well positioned in this landscape. Not only do they get a web savvy architecture built from the ground up to cater for performant web applications they also have a very powerful developer environment in Ares 1.0.


I think this was a good buy for HP and I think it will only help to speed up the evolution of the web platform.

Enablers vs. Web

Whenever I hear the term 'enabler' I think of telecom and the overwhelming number of enablers that have been defined over time. There is the location enabler, messaging enabler and presence enabler and the list goes on.

What most often fails to happen is the applied use of these enablers for anyone but the operator that have put them in place. This has obviously changed over the last couple of years with developer programs (such as Orange Partner), general openness and competition. Still, enablers are standardized components designed to fit into an operator service architecture and if you are lucky to actually work across operators in a roaming fashion.

Adding more enablers would, in theory, get you more functionality, more developers and more innovative services. This rarely happens. It rarely happens because the enablers tend to only work with data hosted, or owned if you like, by the operator.

Now, the other model is the Web way of doing things. The rough consensus and running code, beta, previews, launch quicker than ever paradigm. This model is also different in that is based on de-centralization. Each added service is a new opportunity.

The way things are added to the Web today is by, more or less, first understanding that you need to be accessible, you need to have an API that others can build on, interact with and link to their service. The Web of Data that this enables is as important as the service you can see and touch with your browser.

The API is generally not standardized because it is not needed. In comparison, anything that gets added to an operator network needs standards by definition so that you can source the component from multiple suppliers, secure a low price and be sure that it talks to all the systems already in place.

The Web model promotes something else that is key - I get to choose which service to use, how they link and what they share (as far as my data is concerned).

I think that in the race we are in, the Web model will prevail and continuing to standardize enablers is a waste of valuable time and resources that can be better spent on other things.