Palm made a bold decision when it dropped its long-standing PDA platform in favor of a completely new, redesigned mobile operating system that it termed webOS. The operating system was a significant departure from Palm's previous operating systems, offering the type of visual flair and touchscreen applications seen on iPhones, not Palm PDAs.

Despite its flagship webOS device, the Palm Pre, failing to meet the companies expectations, webOS was considered a significant success and a strong contender for dominance in the mobile phone space. The struggling Palm Pre eventually brought down Palm altogether, significantly reducing its quarterly profits and prompting the company to offer itself up for sale. Hewlett-Packard stepped in and saved Palm from what would certainly have been the end of their business, and they did so largely because of their interest in webOS.

One of the areas were webOS shines, especially given the iPhone's recent struggles, is its Palm email implementation. Many users will be familiar with the iPhone's "non-unified" inbox, meaning every email inbox is viewed separately rather than together. Palm email unifies all inboxes, whether they be Hotmail, GMail, etc., or even an Exchange email account. And Exchange email sync is support
ed right out of the box by the Palm Pre and the webOS platform, a welcome feature for any business users who may not be sure if webOS can be taken seriously for business applications.

HP has committed to furthering the development of webOS, which it will be using on all of its smartphones and even on its consumer-targeted tablet PCs. Drawn not only by the operating system's enterprise functions (like Exchange email), but also by the development platform, HP has promised full HTML5 integration. They've promised to add things like the HTML5 standard for geolocation, (using the phone's built-in GPS), app caching, and many more features.

And with tablet devices soon sporting the webOS operating system, HP is likely to add a whole host of new features that are specific to larger screens - as well as spark the development of an entirely new line of applications that also take advantage of increased screen real estate.

Despite Palm's woes, the HP purchase of the company (and its mobile operating system) promises a bright future by webOS. HP has shunned any involvement in Windows Mobile or Android devices, instead focusing its full development efforts on webOS. For those who were pleasantly surprised and awed by the operating system when it was owned by Palm, the future now looks even brighter and more stable for this innovative mobile platform.