HP to develop Palm webOS tablets, netbooks, phones

US manufacturer HP has revealed plans to develop smartphone, netbook and tablet devices based on the recently acquired Palm webOS platform.

The firm agreed to pick up the struggling US-based handset vendor for $1.2bn in cash in April, with the intention of heavily investing in the webOS platform.

Now HP has said that Palm will be responsible for webOS-based software and hardware products, “from a robust smartphone roadmap to future slate PCs and netbooks.”

Jon Rubinstein, former Palm chairman and chief executive officer, will remain as leader of the devices group, reporting to Todd Bradley, executive vice president of the personal systems group at HP.

As a former Apple heavyweight, Rubinstein joined Palm as executive chairman in 2007, and assumed the role of CEO in June 2009. He was instrumental in turning Apple’s fortunes around in the late 90s, and was also the visionary behind the original iPod. Analyst house Informa Telecoms & Media believes that it is important for HP to retain Rubinstein and keep him at the forefront of the development of webOS.

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Omnifone scores music deal with HP

Cloud-based music provider Omnifone, which made waves in the mobile market in 2007 after striking a deal with Vodafone, expanded its offering on Monday through a partnership with HP.

The service provider launched a PC-based music offering, MusicStation Desktop, offering unlimited music in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland.

The service will be pre-installed on 16 HP models and will provide subscribers with access to millions of tracks from Universal Music, Sony Music, EMI and Warner Music International.

MusicStation costs £8.99 per month in the UK, or €9.99 elsewhere. Tracks are downloaded directly to the user’s PC over the internet for both online and offline playback (while the subscription is still active). Subscribers can also download and keep their favourite ten tracks forever in DRM free MP3 file format each month.

At the time of the Vodafone partnership in 2007, Rob Lewis, chief executive of Omnifone, took to task the “myopic” argument that “users don’t get anything for their money once they unsubscribe” with the claim that that for all the time they do subscribe, users have access to millions of tracks for a nominal fee.

Omnifone has music service deals with BSkyB, Sony Ericsson, Vodafone, Hutchison Telecom and Telenor.

The deal with HP is also significant in that it paves the way for Omnifone to get its service onto devices in the burgeoning netbook market, devices which are increasingly being subsidised by mobile operators.

The Dell Latitude Z features an inductive charging system

Computer manufacturer Dell, which is pushing into the mobile handset and netbook space, expanded its mobile computing line on Tuesday with a device boasting wireless docking and inductive charging.

Dell claims the Latitude Z is the world’s thinnest and lightest 16-inch laptop and features an inductive coil which matches another found in the laptop dock and can accomplish a full recharge of the unit’s batteries in about the same amount of time as a standard cabled charger, but without wires.

So far, Palm appears to be the only handset company to feature inductive charging, which it debuted with the Pre.

The Latitude Z can also connect with a separate monitor wirelessly via a small adapter and also features the company’s first attempt at an always on OS, allowing instant access to email, contacts, calendar and web browser via a platform running on a separate micro motherboard and processor.

The device starts at a retail price of $1,999.

Wireless charging is gaining some traction in the industry.  In August, the Wireless Power Consortium – a body dedicated to the development and promotion of an international wireless power standard –released the 0.95 technical specification for review by its members, suggesting that a version 1.0 release is not too far away.

Under the Consortium’s plans, all electronic devices bearing the ‘Qi’ symbol could be charged on any charging pad or surface marked with the same ‘Qi’ logo. The global wireless power charging standard is targeted at low power devices that are five watts and below, such as mobile phones and personal music players.

Acer confirms Android handsets, netbooks

Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Acer has confirmed plans to launch a range of smartphones based on the Android platform in the fourth quarter of this year.

In the wake of its foray into the mobile space with a line-up of Windows Mobile devices, Acer this week announced it has joined the Open Handset Alliance, “demonstrating its support for Android as an open mobile platform and its commitment to Android’s commercial success”.

Acer did not give details on how many devices it would be launching and would only say the first gadgets would be available towards year end.

On Tuesday the Taiwanese vendor also unveiled the Aspire One netbook, it’s first such device to feature the Android operating system. In addition to Microsoft’s Windows OS, the majority of Acer netbooks will also offer Android in the future, allowing users to select their preferred OS, Acer said. The company plans to launch its first Aspire One netbooks with Android in the third quarter.

The Google-backed Android platform has been gaining momentum of late and the OHA now counts a member base of over 40 companies. Japanese vendor Panasonic is believed to be coming out with a Google phone in 2010. While Samsung will release several gadgets based on Android, with the first expected to arrive in the summer months, followed by two more in the second half of the year.

A recently leaked company road map from troubled vendor Motorola suggests that the company has and Android gadget called the Morrison in the works, and that it will be available on T-Mobile USA towards year end. And Android pioneer HTC is also gearing up to release two more Android phones this year, in addition to the recently launched Magic handset.

Meanwhile, Canada’s Koolu has taken the Neo FreeRunner open source handset from OpenMoko and stuck Android Cupcake on it. It’s already shipping beta versions and hopes to have a consumer offering available over the summer.

First some details. Verizon Wireless is moving into netbooks on May 17, when it will launch the HP Mini 1151NR for $200 with a two-year contract, and after a $50 mail-in rebate. The device has embedded EV-DO Rev. A and HSPA, with service plans costing $40 per month for 250MB and $0.10/MB for overage, suitable for light users, and $60 per month for 5GB usage with $0.05/MB overage.  Verizon Wireless has used the netbook launch to tweak its plans, with the $40 plan previously offering 50MB per month and $0.25/MB overage, and the $60 plan 5GB per month and $0.25/MB overage. Those are small steps in the right direction, but it will take a giant leap to bring the US in line with global mobile broadband pricing.

Having moved from the UK to the US not so long ago, I’m continually surprised by the relatively high price of mobile broadband in the US. Verizon Wireless is charging $200 for its mobile broadband netbook, but all the major UK mobile operators now offer them free. Likewise the Verizon Wireless netbook plan is $60 per month for 5GB of usage, compared to, for example, £30 ($45) per month for 15GB of usage from 3UK. AT&T also recently launched a trial where it offers netbooks for $50, but only if subscribers sign up for a $60 per month mobile broadband plan and AT&T’s DSL service.

Just comparing the Verizon Wireless and 3 UK plans, both operators require a two-year contract, so the next step is to look at the total price over two years including netbook and subscription costs. Verizon Wireless comes out at $1,640, which is $583 more than the 3UK cost of $1,087. Put another way, Verizon charges 34% more for a plan with 200% less data usage.

What’s the reason for the difference? It doesn’t seem to be the netbooks, which are broadly similar, particularly when you consider that UK operators offer a variety of fully-subsidized notebooks with various specifications.  However one major difference is Verizon is offering embedded mobile broadband, and 3UK bundles its netbooks with a USB modem.

So the question becomes, is the convenience of an embedded chipset worth $583 over two years? Certainly not for me – I use a mobile broadband USB modem at the moment and it’s pretty convenient, so the price gap would have to be a lot lower to go for embedded.  In addition, netbooks similar to Verzon’s are available for $299 (for example the Dell Mini 10v), and mobile broadband USB modems are often free with a contract, so consumers don’t have to pay much more to put their own package together, with the added benefit of getting the netbook they want.

Another difference is the Verizon Wireless device supports both EV-DO Revision A and HSPA, via Qualcomm’s Gobi chipset, which makes it a truly global device. Of course the much broader coverage of HSPA worldwide means the 3 UK HSPA modem can also be used globally, including in the US, without the need for EV-DO Revision A. At least in theory – I haven’t checked 3 UK’s international plans, though I assume data roaming charges are high. For its part, Verizon Wireless is offering a GlobalAccess plan for $130 per month including 100MB in 30 international areas and 5GB per month in the US and Canada. It will be interesting to see how many jetsetters sign up for that one.

Looking more broadly, the comparison between the two operators seems a fair reflection of overall mobile broadband pricing in the US and UK. In fact the data wizards on our World Cellular Information Service team track mobile broadband pricing by operator worldwide, and their findings are surprising. Basically there are three outliers with unusually high prices—Puerto Rico, the US and Japan—while most other countries tracked are bunched in a similar (if relatively wide) price range.

More specifically, our research finds that in January 2009 the average basic price of mobile broadband services in the US was $92.17 per month, compared to $30.31 per month in the UK. That’s right, the price was more than three times higher in the US.

Of course Verizon Wireless and 3UK are not competitors, and the US and UK are obviously very different markets subject to their own competitive dynamics and regulations. But the scale of the price difference between similar mobile broadband services in the two countries is hard to fathom – and hard to swallow as a consumer.

Mike Roberts is author of Future Mobile Broadband: HSPA & EV-DO to LTE Networks, Devices & Services

Android to rule netbook market

The Google-backed Android platform is likely to emerge as the strongest contender in the growing netbook market, blazing a trail on sub-$200 Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs).

Industry analyst Ovum said this week that netbooks will not bring Linux to the masses to the extent and in the way that many industry watchers are expecting.

Rather, Linux vendors need to focus on the netbook as a sub-$200 appliance rather than an alternative to Windows netbooks and laptops. Despite getting off to a strong start, Linux netbooks have now been overtaken by Windows netbooks and the open source operating system is lagging increasingly behind in terms of sales.

But the laptop market is becoming increasingly complex, with market segments catered for by a growing variety of low-cost netbooks and laptops, where low cost Linux-based operating systems have an opportunity to excel.

Ovum reckons that with two types of device belonging to the same MID market – netbooks, where the MID and laptop markets overlap – and smartphones, where the MID and telephony markets overlap – Linux could make it as the dominant OS by building on its strength as a phone platform as well as its potential as a sub-$200 netbook OS.

The analyst advises Linux vendors to focus specialised distributions for appliance operating systems, especially Android. Both Freescale Semiconductor and Asus unveiled Android netbook plans in February 2009, and more are expected to follow.

As internet-connected applications and app stores are key to the success of the netbook appliance/MID market, Android is perfectly placed to benefit from increasing support from developers, and Ovum hints that the success of Android could even see the platform’s Java-based Dalvik runtime environment ported to other platforms such as Symbian and Windows Mobile.