Will Amazon buy OMAP?

Texas Instruments (TI) recently announced they were 'defocusing' efforts on their OMAP line of ARM based CPUs (OMAP is their bleeding edge line of ARM based CPUs made for mobile type devices, they also have various lines of industrial ARM based CPUs, but these tend to be based on older ARM architectures). The defocusing has led to rumours that TI want to sell their OMAP devision. Both Amazon and Barnes and Noble use OMAP processors for their Kindle and Nook readers respectively. It seems Amazon has been in discussions with TI for a while and they may be a leading contender in an OMAP purchase. This would give Amazon control of their own CPUs, much like Apple has done with its Ax range of CPUs. Amazon could also use the OMAP processor in devices that may come to market such as a smartphone or other tablet. Amazon may also be in discussions with RIM to license Blackberry OS 10 and also in discussion with HP to buy or license WebOS (which HP took control of when they purchased Palm). Currently WebOS is being open sourced. Amazon have already forked Google's Android and removed all the Google sign-in functionality as well as Google's apps and they run their own Amazon app store.

Palm releases WebOS 1.4.5

Palm has release an update to their WebOS taking it to version 1.4.5 which will run on Palm Pre and Pixi devices. Though only a minor update which mainly fixes bugs, it does add 3D support to the Pixi range (and stabilises 3D for the Pre). It also adds supports for the PDK (plug-in development kit) which Palm released a while back. The update will be available immediately to US users on Sprint and French users of SFR. Palm have not said when O2 other other users will be lucky and get their new versions, but generally updates are quickly (within a few days) sent to all operators.

This is the first release since Palm was acquired by HP for $1.2bn and HP has confirmed that WebOS will be used as a future OS for tablet based computers, though it has not confirmed for which tablets or when. HP was going to produce a tablet (known as the Slate) which was going to run Windows 7, but HP pulled it when Apple announced the iPad. Having WebOS will allow HP to develop their own Operating System suitable for the enterprise market and reduce their reliance on Google (for Android or Chrome OS), Microsoft or even Intel/Nokia for MeeGo.

HP's saucy acquisition of Palm

HP acquired Palm for $1.2bn and maybe there's method behind the madness, why would they want Palm?

The price seems quite high for a mobile company that isn't quite meeting market expectations and though Palm have some nice devices (the Pixie and Pre) and a new operating system (WebOS) they're not selling brilliantly.

HP make PDAs, they're trying to sell them into the enterprise which is where HP do well. Palm used to sell into the enterprise and do well, but they've lost their way and the introduction of WebOS was too late too little and they've been overtaken by Apple with the iPhone, RIM with their Blackberries and Google with Android based systems. HP license Windows Mobile which hasn't been the huge success that both Microsoft and HP would have liked.

So HP's acquisition of Palm suddenly means they have their own operating system WebOS which they can develop, make shiny and integrate on to their own devices and get their mobile devices back into the enterprise.

There's a second reason too, HP want to make tablets (of the computing variety) and they need an operating system, especially since Microsoft have just dropped their tablet plans. WebOS could fit that bill and again would fit well in HP's core enterprise market. It will need some polishing, but HP have got the clout to push it in the right direction. They can develop a creditable competitor to Apple's OS and Google's Android/Chrome systems and Intel/Nokia's MeeGo.

Maybe the acquisition was too cheap?

Mobile Stats, Symbian wins hands down

There have been some interesting talks recently with various statistics about phone sales thrown in.

Though everyone wants to develop for the sexy iPhone, in global terms it's actually a small player in terms of sales and also as there's such a wealth of applications getting yours' noticed in the 140,000 or so iPhone apps that are out there is very difficult. Of course if you can get it noticed then Apple definitely have the nicest app store out there and it's easy to bill and even charge for in app content.

Ewan Macleod did a presentation at Devnest on Wednesday and here are some stats from his presentation.

There are 4.6bn mobile subscribers (compared to 1.6bn TVs and 1.7bn credit cards - begs the question why don't mobile phone companies do mobile payments). In 2009 there are 1.2bn mobile phones sold (300m TVs and 280m PCs).

Comparing global handset sales Nokia 36% (441m), Other 25% (300m), Samsung 19% (236m), LG 10% (122m), Motorola 5% (58m) and SonyEricsson 5% (55m). So Nokia shipped 1.4m phones per day.

However the North American market is different, Nokia don't even make a dent (which may sway developers are they look at US developers who have no experience with Nokia). Here's it all RIM with 43%, iPhone 25.1%, Windows Mobile 15.7%, Android 7.1% and Palm 5.7%. Interestingly Android is expected to increase to 20% of the smartphone market there.

Ask a developer what platforms they're developing for and it's 92% iPhone and 8% Android, but if you look at mobile phone OS penetrations it's: -

* Symbian 47%
* RIM 20%
* iPhone 14%
* Windows Phone 9%
* Linux 5%
* Android 4%
* Palm WebOS 1%

In the UK there are about 3m iPhones out in the market, that means there are 50 - 60m handsets that iPhone developers are missing (OK not all of them are smartphones).

Many people have written-off Symbian, but it's still the most popular phone OS and now that it's been open sourced with a sensible abstraction layer (Qt) it's easier to write for. Though Nokia's Ovi store isn't the best out there (some people may say it's particularly poor), Nokia are constantly improving it and there are now over 1.5m downloads per day.

Phone companies have developer programs, even Apple has one, but you have to play by their rules and particularly their approval process it can takes weeks to get approved, Android takes under 1 second.

Various operators runs competitions to stimulate apps for their platforms (Vodafone 360, Blackberry, Nokia) - some of these may be 'under utilised' so the chances of winning are highly elevated, it's worth having a look to see who's doing what.

So it looks like developers (globally) are swayed by the US market, but they should be taking a more global view and no one should be writing Symbian off yet.