[sportline]

rather than building up qnx with no ends in sight, rim should be able to buy qnx for few hundred million $...wouldn't it be a better option?

[aulanicki]

Considering WebOS already failed and RIM has already spent millions purchasing QNX, how would this be a better option?

[Fussolia]

I really like the idea of a combining the best features from QNX, BlackBerry smartphone OS, and webOS.

[papped]

Buying a dead platform that has no real ecosystem from another company and is incompatible with their infrastructure is not a solution. They are just inheriting the same problems, only worse...

[TBone4eva]

It's too late, they have invested too much time, money and have ruined too many relationships with their customers, investors and partners to go with yet another OS. If they can't make it with QNX they aren't making it at all.

[WinningWithLogic]

Buying a dead platform that has no real ecosystem from another company and is incompatible with their infrastructure is not a solution. They are just inheriting the same problems, only worse...

I think WebOS would have put them in a better position than where they are now.

All RIM have now with QNX is a kernel. That's it. By buying WebOS, they would now have:

(a) A stable kernel + full application suite and software stack
(b) A real platform + suite of development tools. The WebOS platform supported both native applications and web applications - exactly the path RIM is now going down with their NDK and WebWorks. And the WebOS NDK is substantially more baked than the incomplete tooling and platform RIM is offering today at https://bdsc.webapps.blackberry.com/native/

Arguably, WebOS has more of an ecosystem than PlayBook as well.

Edit: To be clear, I'm saying buying WebOS a while back would have put them in a better position. Now? Of course, it's too late. The company is pretty much done.

[thymaster]

Why? They got something good going with QNX. It's a far superior platform then WebOS. QNX was built from scratch to utilize multicore processors for maximum performance. WebOS was built with a user graphical experience in mind but failed to keep up with the demanding hardware. The original PalmPre hardware was always over clocking so it gets extremely hot and crashes all the time. The PlayBook is a 1000X more stable then the Pre first launch.

It's cheaper to build an OS from scratch then take over an OS to fix, clean, debug and re-learn the structure. It's like taking over a game where you continue where the other person left off but you don't understand what went on but you still want to win, so you have to clean up the other person's mess before you can achieve anything.

[M.Rizk]

I prefer QNX, something new, fresh not a dead platform everyone making fun of.

[anon(3896606)]

rather than building up qnx with no ends in sight, rim should be able to buy qnx for few hundred million $...wouldn't it be a better option?

To answer your question, No.
I think RIM really wants to make something unique and try to earn their money from "scratch" kinda.
They could have bought Web O.S earlier when they were announcing the Playbook, they didn't obviously.
Also Web O.S is what I call a "failed" platform. Was it a few months ago H.P closed it due to lack of sales, this is NOT what R.I.M would need, as their sales aren't doing so well at the moment.
Another reason is I would think it would be harder to code something like Blackberry Bridge or Messenger for a platform that is completely different.
Lastly R.I.M is using QNX's name to get sales, what I mean is when someone hears "Wow, they're sending something to the moon, that has the same operating system as the Blackberry Playbook on it?". I would think stuff like that helps them. Q.N.X is also very secure which is something the Blackberry phones are known for.

This are just what I think, hope I didn't bore you!

[Wretch 12]

webOS is behind HP's failure with the mobile market, what makes you think RIM could revive it?

If anything, I believe WebOS and RIM combined together would mean certain death for RIM, at least with QNX we're promised something great, I'm pretty sure if RIM bought out webOS we'd probably see a very little to no difference in the OS and people would leave after a while.

[samab]

rather than building up qnx with no ends in sight, rim should be able to buy qnx for few hundred million $...wouldn't it be a better option?

The issue has never been on the client side.

It is the server side that can't handle one single individual with 2 different devices and 2 different PIN's. Buying webos and putting it into the Playbook --- would still not get you native email and not get you native BBM.

So instead of spending $200 million on QNX and get a better OS --- you just spend $1.2 billion on webos, get the slowest browser in the entire mobile world, and still not get native email/bbm.

[sportline]

but BES /BIS system is built based on BBOS, so no matter what system you introduce, you will still get the same problem of integrating it..right? whether its qnx or webos?
my point is at least webos is a proven working system. and it proves that qnx is nowhere near webos in term of completeness (webos works since 2009).
speaking of ecosystem, there's minimum apps and less than a million qnx-os product in the market.
as for cost, the cost of this qnx mixed up may cost rim;s life : remember the next handset will have qnx.
webos is a dead os since hp and palm can't make a decent hardware. its ceo jon rubinstein got vision but can't make good hardware and he failed.

as for the transitions, bbos-qnx reminds me of palmos to webos transitions.

[samab]

but BES /BIS system is built based on BBOS, so no matter what system you introduce, you will still get the same problem of integrating it..right? whether its qnx or webos?
my point is at least webos is a proven working system. and it proves that qnx is nowhere near webos in term of completeness (webos works since 2009).
speaking of ecosystem, there's minimum apps and less than a million qnx-os product in the market.
as for cost, the cost of this qnx mixed up may cost rim;s life : remember the next handset will have qnx.
webos is a dead os since hp and palm can't make a decent hardware. its ceo jon rubinstein got vision but can't make good hardware and he failed.

as for the transitions, bbos-qnx reminds me of palmos to webos transitions.

BES/BIS runs on Microsoft Windows server OS.

webos is proven to have the SLOWEST browser in the whole mobile world.

What completeness are you talking about? The only major missing item is the native email --- which as I stated --- would not have helped with webos.

The playbook has over 5000 apps now --- which is the same size as the unofficial app count for webos phones (and dwarf touchpad's 1000 apps).

What costing RIM's life? You still won't have a native email if you use webos and you spend a billion dollars more if you buy Palm.

[advcomputer]

WebOS would be a nightmare. Plus they would have to spend a large amount of time learning the OS code base and then trying to figure out how to integrate BIS / BES, etc

[papped]

QNX performance is already beyond webos. Most of the feature it's missing (other than native email since that ties in to the infrastructure) are relatively small changes that RIM just decided not to make individually.

App compatibility with marmalade sdk + android player + easy flash ports all guarantee more apps than webos, which is supported by none of that.

Everyone else already touched on all the other massive problems that would come with buying webos.

[blackjack93117]

rather than building up qnx with no ends in sight, rim should be able to buy qnx for few hundred million $...wouldn't it be a better option?

No........

[melander]

webOS is behind HP's failure with the mobile market, what makes you think RIM could revive it?

If anything, I believe WebOS and RIM combined together would mean certain death for RIM, at least with QNX we're promised something great, I'm pretty sure if RIM bought out webOS we'd probably see a very little to no difference in the OS and people would leave after a while.

HP was not in the mobile market long enough to even have more than 1 HP branded phone.

[sportline]

so i guess we're on correct path with this qnx?