[zmmmmm]

The real question is not whether WebOS is good or bad but whether any single hardware and OS vendor (other than Apple, obviously) has a snowflake's chance in hell of getting the ecosystem and mindshare required to be competitive. Especially in the US where the carriers have a such strong hold on the only viable channels to consumers you basically can't get anywhere unless you can align your interests strongly with the established parties. Apple forced their way in through sheer mass consumer appeal, Google managed to do it through a brilliant strategy of giving carriers just enough control to make them see it as a savior from being dictated to by Apple. But what strategic value will carriers get from offering WebOS based phones? If HP screws them with bad hardware they are stuck. If HP screws them with bad software they are stuck. Pile on top of that the fact that the demands of modern smart phones these days go way beyond a nice OS - you just can't compete unless you come to the table with a huge range of services integrated - mapping, search, voice-to-text, etc. WebOS relies on competitors to get these services which can't possibly work long term.

I also disagree with the assessment of WP7 - I don't think the so-called "missteps" have even been noticed by the vast majority of consumers using WP7 phones. With Nokia maxing out their distribution channel to push WP7 phones I really can't see how WebOS is going to beat them. People are going to buy them just through sheer numbers of them on the shelves. It doesn't mean WP7 is going to succeed but certainly indicates WebOS is going to have a really hard time beating them.