Hewlett-Packard will be moving its MediaSmart Server team into the Palm unit in an effort to boost the multimedia capabilities of webOS.
“We’ll put the MediaSmart Server team’s multimedia and entertainment application experience toward developing the WebOS ecosystem,” said Marlene Somsak, an HP spokeswoman, in an e-mail to PC World.
If you don’t know, the MediaSmart team involved multiple software products which allows you to have remote access to your media files on multiple devices. It has been built primarily on top of Windows devices but there’s also an Apple iPhone app.
The potential for synergies with webOS are enormous, particularly because we know that HP will be using this platform for a variety of devices including smartphones, tablets and printers. This could be a webOS version of AirPlay, which enables iOS users to share multimedia content between an iPhone, Apple TV and other approved devices.
After HP purchased Palm for $1.2 billion earlier this year, many were hoping for an immediate splash of new products. It took plenty of time for the actual deal to got through and it will take even more time for the companies to merge fully, so it may take some more time before we see the real fruits of this marriage.
The Palm Pre 2, for example, is just an incremental upgrade over the previous one and it had likely been on the drawing board for a while. We’re not expecting to be blown away by an “HPalm” product until at least next year.
The product that could blow us away is the webOS-powered PalmPad, a direct competitor to the iPad and the slew of other tablets that are flooding the market. The MediaSmart integration could give this webOS tablet stronger multimedia capabilities than many of its competitors and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.
[Via PC World]