It feels like it’s been ages since the Palm Pre was released and webOS first made its debut. The slate-style Pixi that came along was decent, but not great, and the refreshes that came in the “Plus” versions of both weren’t groundbreaking or exciting. Since then, Palm has gone through a lot with layoffs and employees leaving. The biggest change for the webOS innovator was that huge acquisition by HP. And, now that Palm has the resources of a giant tech company behind it, the company says new webOS hardware is on the way and next year is going to be exciting.
A Palm rep was quoted today during a webinar as saying:
I’m not allowed to talk about future roadmaps, especially because we’re in the process of being acquired by HP, so I can’t say. But yes we have a road map. We are working on future devices. And [a] new version of the OS. So I think, you’re going to find the next year very exciting.
Working on future devices? A new version of webOS? I’m hoping Palm manages to not just stay in the game, but to actually thrive and do well. We’ve already caught wind of a webOS-powered tablet coming down the product pipeline at either Palm or HP, so the mention of a refreshed webOS and a still-developing product roadmap is as exciting as it gets. What we don’t know, however, is whether the rumored tablet will be a Palm-branded or HP-branded device.
With Apple and the iPhone, Google and Android and Microsoft with Windows 7, the competition is going to be pretty fierce. It would be great to see some killer hardware that would finally do webOS some justice as the Pre and Pixi weren’t the greatest pieces of kit, and while Palm is at it with HP’s help, why not throw in a tablet?
[Via: PreCentral]