We just wrapped up the keynote for Palm’s Developer Day in New York City. A tag-team of Ben Galbraith, Dion Almaer, Phil McKinney, and Joe Hayashi took the stage to give an overview of where they see web and mobile development now and where they see it going in the future.

Ben and Dion noted that the web and HTML5 really are going to become a first-class app development and distribution platform – as evidenced by even Microsoft’s new and surprising support for HTML5 standards.

Phil McKinney gave his ’stump speech’  about the excitement within HP for webOS and reiterated that HP is looking to drive webOS to lots of form factors and devices to fill the gap between the smartphone and the PC. Phil also broke out his flexible display technology. We asked him how he’s going to keep excitement up over the next few months for webOS in the consumer market and his response: it will be easier to generate excitement when you have new devices. Expect HP to bring tablets, new phones, and "really interesting new form factors" in 2011. McKinney also noted that HP controls literally 10% of the shelf space in the consumer electronics space and they plan to make Palm "to play an important part for that shelf space."

Later on, Joe Hayashi teased that HP will be moving away from the current application framework (called Mojo) to something called "Enyo" that will be faster, support multiple form factors, and work with Palm’s online, drag-n-drop development Ares system. (in fact, "Enyo" is a Greek goddess of war and a companion to the war-god Ares – get it?). Hayashi notes that the Early Access Developer SDK will see support for both Enyo and tablets in early 2011. Also pegged for "Early 2011"  - those slates and phones that Palm is very much aware we are all waiting on.

We’ll have more on the Enyo app framework later this afternoon. Keep it locked to PreCentral!

READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

HP has been on a shopping spree like a winning contestant on The Price Is Right, having recently acquired several tech companies at multi billion dollar prices. In an interview with Venture Beat at the DEMO Fall 2010 conference, HP Vice President and CTO Phil McKinney took some time to explain what all of this means to the consumer. McKinney said the purpose of all these acquisitions is to create a line of products that can be bought at one time and already work together seamlessly out of the box: “You integrate them and take the burden off the customers of doing that." He added that this would also reduce cost and add value.

The companies that HP has acquired recently are PC software and hardware makers that seem to have little to do with mobile products, but the fact that HP is thinking in terms of integrating its products together certainly makes one wonder what this means for smart phones and tablets. McKinney said that HP has "significantly expanded the staff" at Palm and that they are working as fast as they can to catch up with the iPad with their upcoming Slate and webOS tablets, scheduled for a late 2010 and early 2011 release respectively. When they are released, he pointed out, they will have tremendous reach with HP’s more than 100,000 retailers worldwide.

Once again webOS printers were mentioned and though printing from a webOS smart phone or tablet were not mentioned, he did say that sending quick print jobs like coupons would be very quick and effortless on one of these magical new printers.

Source: Venture Beat

READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

We’ve already reported how HP is installing Touchstones everywhere, including in its board rooms. Via Twitter yesterday, we learned that Phil McKinney, VP and CTO of HP’s Personal Systems Group, has joined the many Pre and Pixi users who are mounting their Touchstones in their cars to make the best mobile OS even more mobile. Perhaps McKinney might want to post the photo of his install, and get some tips on even more sophisticated and creative mounts in our forum. Join up, Phil, it’s free!

We also hear that HP’s Rahul Sood is joining the Touchstone-in-car bandwagon. Now all we need is an official solution – what say you, HP?

Source: Twitter; Thanks to Rot for the tip!

READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

HP CTO Phil McKinney (a standup gentlemen, if we may say so) has thrown his hat into the ring to get a panel at next March’s SXSW event, proposing a presentation titled “Hacking the Future,” wherein he would discuss his vision for how personal computing will be rolling along during the next decade, replete with “bold predictions.” While we predict that the fabled flexible display sheet will make another appearance, HP’s Mark Budgell posted a pair of teaser photos on the Twitter that have us in a bit of a tizzy.

See, there are at least three different devices teased here: a bigger tabletish thing, a smaller smartphoneish thing, and a wide wristwatchish thing. Problem is this: all three are blacked out into oblivion. So what are they? If we had to take a guess, it’s a webOS tablet, a new webOS smartphone, and that internet-sharing wristwatch HP’s talked about before (the watch provides the web connection and shares with your devices, ala Mobile Hotspot). But are these mere concept prototypes, or is McKinney playing with actual devices we’ll see in the near future. While we are hoping and praying that these are actual working devices we’ll be using soon, we wouldn’t count on it. McKinney’s presentation is on computing five to ten years from now, not six months to a year.

Enough of our jabbering and speculation – what do you see hidden behind the black boxes? If you really want to find out, you’ll head to SXSW’s panels page and vote for McKinney’s panel (registration required).

Source: MarkatHP on Twitter, SXSW; Via: Gizmodo; Hat tip to Andrew

READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

HP CTO Phil McKinney has mentioned that he’d issued a challenge to the company’s elite engineering corps at an internal event known as TechCon to develop applications for webOS in a bid to increase "dogfooding".  Some time has passed since then, and there’s nary an HP app to be found in the App Catalog, though we expect that to change soon.  In a recent Twitter conversation with our very own @Mahootzki, Phil McKinney revealed that we’ll be hearing more about those HP developed apps sooner than later: "The actual app count is ~500 (my mailbox exploded). We are in the final stage of selecting ‘best app’ winners. Stay tuned…"

So far, it sounds like it was a successful initiative to drive awareness inside of HP about webOS.  500 apps isn’t a trivial number when you consider that the North American catalog only has some 3400 apps with a healthy number of them being "spam" apps.  What we’ll see materialize from the depths HP’s engineering labs is anyone’s guess, but the company is home to a large number of talented engineers. Hopes, they are high.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

Welcome to Point Counter Point, wherein Derek vents his spleen like the dour misanthrope we’ve all come to know and love, Dieter consoles us all with rainbows and unicorns, and the truth lies – as it always does – somewhere in the middle.

Today’s topic: What to make of all the pie-in-the-sky future talk we are hearing from HP instead of actual product announcements.

read more

READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

HP CTO Phil McKinney just finished his speech at AlwaysOn and as expected, there were no major announcements to be had. McKinney did discuss some of the roadblocks between where we are and where we need to be with regard to mobile cloud computing – hitting on issues like the US falling behind in broadband infrastructure and companies intervening between app developers and users in oppressive ways.

McKinney also once again mentioned HP’s thinking with regard to the future of devices with those flexible displays, though he went one step further and hypothetized about separating the display from the device – ex. your connection could be your watch and you display could be a flexible display, your phone, or heck, even your entire wall as in the slide above. Who wouldn’t want a webOS Wall?

Q&A time brought a lot of questions about Palm. McKinney once again mentioned HP’s size and scale, natch, but he also pointed out that that he has given phones as prizes to HP engineers who develop good webOS apps:

Inside of HP with the 47,000 engineers I issued a challenge [...] for the HP engineers to go create apps, consumer apps [...] I stopped counting at 750 apps and my mailbox has totally exploded.

Some of those apps, by the way, have popped up in Palm’s Beta Apps feed.

McKinney pointed out that Palm does not get in the way of letting developers connect directly to their users. In fact, enterprises are free to create their own app distribution systems. McKinney also pointed out that HP supports homebrew: 

We also support the homebrew guys. You hear about all the guys hacking phones and unlocking the phones, we actually encourage that. You can go out to PreCentral or any of the sites that support the Palm homebrew guys. they’ll tell you how to unlock your phone and how you can download the homebrew sites. The homebrew guys have just done some phenomenal work from the standpoint of really unlocking the true power of webOS.

Lastly, McKinney reiterated some of the points we heard last week: "We are also restating that our focus is webOS and Windows 7," meaning that Android is on the outs with HP for sure as is Windows Phone 7. He also reiterated that the Windows 7 Slate is meant solely for enterprise, HP is most definitely working on a webOS Slate device, and finally that Rubinstein wasn’t whistlin’ dixie when he said webOS 2.0 is coming.

Want to show Phil McKinney the same love he’s showing the community? He’s looking for some help creating an ‘audio brand / entrance theme’ for when he heads out to give speeches. The person who creates the best theme will win $1,000 to boot. Check it out here.

Update: the presentation video is online now.

Source: AlwaysOn & ViVu livestream.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

We’ve been seeing a lot of HP CTO Phil McKinney these days, giving speeches and generally talking about the potential power behind HP and Palm – but not, of course, making product announcements. That trend is sure to continue during his next keynote at this week’s AlwaysOn & STVP Summit held at Stanford University (where Palm recently taught a quarter-long  class on developing for webOS) titled “The Future of the Mobile Cloud” at 10:55 Pacific. We’re not expecting there to be a webcast of the presentation.

If you’re interested in the full schedule at the conference, you can find it by way of the AlwaysOn website.   

Source: @PhilMckinney

READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

As we mentioned in our liveblog and wrap-up of Phil McKinney’s keynote at MobileBeat 2010, HP’s CTO was very clear that he wasn’t announcing any new hardware – he likes webOS’s chances on a "Slate device" but not on the Slate device.

McKinney also broke out both a Palm Pre and a Palm Pixi, but the most interesting thing he pulled out during his speech was a rolled-up flexible display. What you’re looking at is something from deep inside HP’s R&D, it’s similar to E-Ink, printed on Mylar, and essentially can be made into any size you can imagine, from handset on up to an entire wall. It’s full color and low-power, but more notably it’s a far-in-the-future kind of thing, don’t expect flexible display devices in the short or even medium term. The display that McKinney showed is still fairly fragile, even rolled up in a protective tube it managed to collect some kinds and flaws.

read more

READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>

We’re live at the MobileBeat 2010 conference! Phil McKinney, HP’s CTO and friend to webOS and Palm takes the stage shortly. We’ll update this post as he gives his keynote:

The Perfect Storm of Innovation Why do device makers need to innovate in software in the current market? How does this play into the coming deluge of connected devices? McKinney shares developments now underway at his own organization, including HP’s vision for next-generation connected devices, and how to tap into the promise of the cloud.

Keynote’s over, folks! McKinney showed off some flexible display technology (but very far into the future). He also said he’s excited to see webOS on Slate devices – but emphatically not THE Slate, McKinney was clear he wasn’t making any announcements right now.

As expected, no new hardware announcements, but McKinney’s understanding of the mobility market and his optimistic and open attitude should make webOS fans take heart. For the record, it does look like whatever the next hardware is going to be, it’ll be based on Palm’s current roadmap and not a complete reboot: "[Palm has] got some great plans and some great things coming, so stay tuned."

Last but not least, McKinney called out the homebrew and developer community around webOS more than once and it definitely didn’t feel pro forma. Instead, looks like HP is genuinely enthused by how much all you homebrewers have accomplished.

Hit us up after the break for the full breakdown of the event, including McKinney’s impromptu chart making skills.

read more

READ THE FULL ARTICLE >>