Linux again took center stage as a major technology leader revealed the details of its mobile device strategy. HP announced two new WebOS phones and more importantly an impressive new tablet that is a clear contender against the iPad. While I don’t for one second underestimate Apple, that was not the most interesting part of the event for me.
The most interesting part of the event came near the end when HP announced that it is going to ship WebOS not only in phones, tablets and printers, but in PC’s as well. In doing so, the worlds largest PC supplier is indicating that they are going to ship PC’s without Windows. For Microsoft - who was nowhere at this event - that has got to hurt. Perhaps this really IS the year of the Linux desktop.
For investors and developers alike, this is your canary in the coal mine in case you haven’t been paying attention lately. There are very few things in computing that are not made with Linux these days. Linux is the underpinning technology for nearly every sector of the market in every form of computing.
By using Linux to capture what analysts predict will be a $30B market for tablets by 2012, HP is further validating Linux as the foundation from which next-generation mobile devices will run. Companies are choosing Linux because it supports more architectures and more devices than any other OS and is freely available and is able to be custom-branded. No other OS on the market can deliver on all of this.
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