Francisco Kattan

Rumors about who will buy webOS from HP have been floating around for a couple of months now, including a recent surge in buzz as HP’s new CEO Meg Whitman ponders how to deal the whole Palm mess she inherited.   One of the potential buyers that has gotten lots of attention is Amazon (main story here).   Why not? After all Amazon has now emerged as one of the most significant threats to Apple and its ecosystem.  Although this threat has been brewing for some time, it only became obvious after Amazon’s recent launch of the Kindle Fire, a Tablet that is expected to split the market with the iPad and relegate all other contenders to “also rans.”

The Kindle Fire relies on Google’s Android operating system and the prevailing argument in the blogosphere is that Amazon needs webOS to differentiate:

“By purchasing the remnants of Palm, Amazon would have free rein to redesign webOS to its own liking, and it would be able to further differentiate its Kindle devices from the slew of Android tablets in the market” (from the story referenced above).

A cursory analysis of both companies (see table below) seems to support this argument.  Amazon has all the pieces in place to pose a credible threat to Apple, except for the ability to differentiate at the OS level.

Read the rest of this entry »