Sam Diaz has gotten clarification on the future of Windows in the light of their Web OS announcements.  It should come as no surprise that Windows isn’t going anywhere, and certainly won’t be replaced by Web OS any time soon.  Instead, HP is saying:

HP will integrate the WebOS experience into Windows, but not through virtualization. He said: “…it will be a combination of taking the existing operating systems and bringing WebOS onto those platforms and making it universal across all of our footprint.”

Sounds great.  Been done before.  Remember HP’s New Wave?  It was a new object-oriented UI shell and mini-platform (we looked at possibly using it for our Windows apps at Borland but declined–not enough value add for the trouble) that HP launched way back in 1989.  They’ve been down this road before of trying to enhance Windows.

It’ll be interesting to see whether it works any better this time around.  Personally, I’m betting against.  The little things it adds that have been demoed so far are all obvious things Microsoft should be building into Windows and in fact will have to build if they want to make their Nokia partnership perform as it should.

This is more or less what happened to New Wave.  It introduced some cool stuff that Redmond promptly scooped up and marginalized through various releases of their own.  It’s good news for Microsoft though.  Their engine is not particularly innovative, but if someone else can show them what to do that’s in a format not too far removed from what they’re familiar with they will grind that stuff out like nobody else.  They’ve needed some of that help, though frankly it has been out there lately and Microsoft hasn’t bitten (Xobni, anyone?). 

Perhaps this will get their attention.