Articles
Never Fear, Enyo is Here 22
So much has happened in the past 36 hours it’s enough to make your head explode. First HP announced its cutting 27,000 jobs over a two-year period; then the core Enyo team is packing up and going to Google. We are happy that the team found fantastic jobs; but we all would like to put you in a line and slap you individually in the face. Anyone that was up at 10:30 pm yesterday got the heart sinking news via Twitter. Not the best way to be met with bad news the second time in a week. The fans of webOS who are true blue supporters, were sent to the bad kids table with a piece of cake without the icing. What’s going to happen to our phones; what’s going to happen to the TouchPad? What’s going to happen to webOS? To ease our worried minds the Enyo team has released this statement:
The core of Enyo 2 is solid. We’re hearing great things from developers about the performance improvements in the last release, and we have another release on the way. After that, we’ll focus on expanding the Onyx widget set. We’ve enlisted the support of the developer relations engineers you know and love to help out as we work on growing the team.
That’s right, we’re growing. As we said earlier this month, we’re hiring — not just to replace the engineers who have left, but to increase the size of the team going forward. If you would like to contribute to the success of Enyo (and get paid for it) please let us know. And of course, all are welcome to contribute to the code by making GitHub pull requests.
Our door is open; if you have any concerns, feel free to voice them in the Enyo forums. We’re always listening and will do our best to address your questions. We’ll also be out in person at next week’s O’Reilly Fluent Conference in San Francisco, and at HP Discover in Las Vegas the following week — we’d love to see you there.
So there you have it, we are moving on as planned so calm your fears. The Enyo team are here for the long haul.
Source: blog.enyojs.com
PSA: TouchPad cases dirt cheap! 22
So you're a TouchPad owner. Maybe you purchased it full price or maybe you waited until the now legendary fire-sale of the TouchPad after good ol' Leo Apotheker killed webOS hardware. You might even be one of the hardcore webOS users that paid top dollar for a beautiful white 1.5GHz TouchPad with a whopping 64GB of storage! Regardless of how you got your hands on one or how much coin you dropped on it you love your TouchPad all the same. Because you love your TouchPad you want to protect it with the best case possible. However sometimes a good case can be a bit expensive so we all tend to look for the best deal possible.
Well if you're looking for a deal look no further than HP's very own Home and Home Office Store. Here is a quick list of all the great deals they have right now:
- HP TouchPad Slipcase: $1.99
- HP TouchPad Power Charger: $4.99
- HP TouchPad Case: $4.99
- Timbuk2 Envelope Case: $14.99
- Timbuk2 Plush Sleeve: $14.99
The best part is all of this can be had with free shipping. So act quick folks because we are sure at these prices supplies will not last very long!
Source: HP Home and Home Office Store via @vara411
Key members of Enyo team quitting HP, moving to Google [Updated with statement from HP] 40
Update: webOS Nation has just received the following statement from HP:
"We’re pleased with the traction Enyo has gained to date and plan to continue its development along with the open source community. The Open webOS project is on schedule and we remain committed to the roadmap announced in January.”
Key members of HP's Enyo team have reportedly just quit the company and left to set up shop over at Google. While initial rumors made it sound like it might be the entire team, webOS Nation's own sources indicate that this will move less than half of the team. It will, however, include Matt McNulty, the Senior Director of Frameworks and Tools.
As to what this means for webOS, well... what would it mean for Apple if the entire iOS application framework group jumped over to RIM, or if the entire Android dev team did a walk in over at Nokia?
In other words -- nothing good.
To be successful, operating systems need to be platforms, platforms need apps, apps need developers, developers need a framework to make apps, and that framework needs a strong, smart, passionate, engaged team behind it. If these rumors turn out to be true, in whole or even in part, webOS' struggle has just become that much more difficult. Again.
Now Enyo might well still be on track, and Enyo isn't the only way to develop for webOS, but it's the first party framework, and that makes it important.
Enyo 2 Beta 3 was released back on March 23 and while no doubt work has already been done on the next beta, and on the release version, it's hard to imagine a large scale defection wouldn't cause problems and delays.
As to what the Enyo team might do over at Google, well hooking back up with Matias Duarte, who designed the original Pre user interface for Palm and now does that same job for Android, is an easy guess. Google's a web services powerhouse, however, and Enyo is a cutting edge web technology framework, so the sky's very literally the limit.
Google's made a serious effort to improve not only the look but the user experience of everything from their web sites to their smartphone apps lately, and there's still Chrome and ChromeOS to consider. A team of skilled web framework developers could go a long way towards furthering all of those goals.
But Enyo and webOS are commited to being open source projects now, and they're bigger than any one person or group of people.
This is still a developing story, and we're tracking it in the webOS nations forums, so head on over there for more.
Source: The Verge
HP's Q2 2012 earnings call the beginning of a major company restructuring - 27,000 jobs to be lost 27
HP on Wednesday announced its Q2 2012 earnings. In an exceedingly dry news release, HP noted a 3 percent drop in revenue, from $31.6 billion a year ago to $30.7 billion for the three months ending in March.
The bigger news, perhaps, is that HP also announced plans for "a multi-year productivity initiative designed to simplify business processes, advance innovation and deliver better results for customers, employees and shareholders."
That means restructuring, of course, and restructuring generally means a reduction in force. HP announced that it "expects approximately 27,000 employees to exit the company." That's 8 percent of total employees, and they'll be gone by November 2014. Early retirement options will be offered, HP said, so hopefully that will mean fewer layoffs. The reductions also will vary by nation, HP said.
"These initiatives build upon our recent organizational realignment, and will further streamline our operations, improve our processes, and remove complexity from our business," said Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer. "While some of these actions are difficult because they involve the loss of jobs, they are necessary to improve execution and to fund the long term health of the company. We are setting HP on a path to extend our global leadership and deliver the greatest value to customers and shareholders."
But what about the continued future of our beloved OS? Not surprisingly, the former Palm and the now open-sourced webOS barely garnered a mention in Wednesday's announcements, save for a note that "HP recorded impairment charges to goodwill and certain intangible assets associated with the acquisition of Palm Inc. The charges relate to HP's decision to wind-down the webOS device business."
Best webOS apps for Cooking and Grilling 9
As the temperature gets warmer and the pavement hotter, it is apparent that summer is here. So whether you are at the beach, at the park, or in your own backyard it’s a time for a get together with family and friends. The one thing that brings people together (other than music) is food. So we here at webOS Nation wanted to bring you the best cooking and grilling apps to get your foodie groove on. Some you have no doubt heard about before, some that might be brand new to you.
Monday Brief: A Nexus Zerg Rush, BB10 Homescreen Details, and more! 1
Best webOS Movie and Video Apps 18
Popcorn check, Slurpee check, chocolate covered peanuts check, sweetheart check; and finally tickets to the hottest movie in the country, check. You’re all set to take your seat in the darkened theater, and as the lights lower, you know it makes happy you planned all of this on your webOS device.
We know there are not many movie apps in the webOS catalog, but what we do have will serve the purpose of an entertaining night out; and for planning for a comfortable night in. So we invite you to peruse the fine selection of apps we found just for you.
Open Mobile & Open webOS: When, Where and the Competition 43
Almost everyday we are reminded of what happened on that dark day in August when they killed webOS hardware and got rid of most of everyone in the hardware division; and it looked like the OS was to be suffer the same fate. Luckily for us, some the most diehard fans, along with some equally determined webOS developers, worked very hard to keep webOS alive. We here at webOS nations know the hot news stories have been slow to turn up, but don't despair.
We say to those who have been taunted by larger screens, faster processors and hardware, fear not. Your time, my loyal friends is coming sooner thank you think. Bide your time my pretties although some wanted to put us in the coffin long before the TouchPad arrived, we are far from being dead. It reminds me of that line in Dark Shadows,"They tried to stone me my dear, it did not work." We want to give you a realistic forecast of how everything is progressing so far. We wanted to let you know everyone at HP and Open Mobile are working as hard as they can so you can have the goodies you all deserve.
Source : OpenMobile
Best webOS Apps for Kids 4
One of the best things that ever happen to webOS was the fire sale. It made TouchPad available and affordable for everyone. Which comes to my next point, the price point of 99.00 to 149.00 made it easy for not only adults, but for kids who wanted their first tablet during the holiday season. So with such responsibility of owning a TouchPad comes finding the right apps for the children. To not only entertain, but keep them out of mom’s hair while she’s cooking.
HP to possibly cut up to 30,000 jobs in restructuring plan 19
According to several reports across the interwebs, HP could be cutting as many as 30,000 jobs in a new restructuring plan starting as early as May 23rd. On that day, according to several sources, CEO Meg Whitman will announce a company-wide restructuring plan that will include the cuts of approximately 10 to 20 percent of the current workforce of 320,000 employees. The numbers all vary from source to source but usually when there is this much grumbling in the tech world it is almost a guarantee that something is going to go down.
Before you all go pointing your fingers at Meg keep in mind when she took the helm at HP she was handed a company that was on a downward spiral the like of which was almost unrivaled in the tech industry. The now infamous former CEO Léo Apotheker who had no previous hardware experience, killed off production of webOS hardware, attempted to spin off HP's PC division, and pretty much wanted to change the focus of the company altogether. Shortly after all of these decisions made by good ol' Léo, shareholders witnessed HP stock plummet more than 20% in a single day. Needless to say Meg Whitman had her work cut out for her when she took over as CEO of HP. So we are sure that if she does in fact make the decision to cut all these jobs it will be for an awfully good reason.
This unfortunately should feel all too familiar to the webOS community as we've seen our fair share of job cuts in recent history. Fortunately webOS or HP's Personal Systems Group have not been directly mentioned in any of the sources. However, with a cut this large one can almost bet on the proverbial "axe" reaching across the entirety of HP. Heck even the poor guy who pushes the mail cart around the offices should be scared at this point! All we can say is that we sincerely hope that webOS doesn't take any hits from this as there really isn't much left to cut. Stay tuned and we will keep you informed of any news that may come out of all of this.
Update: Enda McGrath has told us on Twitter that this will not be affecting webOS. Bullet dodged!
Source: All Things D
