Again from Engadget:

"The word is that Palm's existing hardware roadmap is basically untouched at this point by this acquisition, but the good news on the HP end of things is that the company sees webOS as a "prized asset," and they intend to "scale it across multiple connected devices." That sounds like tablets to us, and HP didn't beat back that assumption. On the Palm hardware end, Jon is very fond of saying "scale," referring to the money and manufacturing resources at HP's disposal, but he also says that he sees Palm working hand in hand with HP on devices. "

dumbed down screen management i think.. most things run full screen but with a guesture to window it, then move things around by simply dragging anywhere over them, multitouch resize, and guestures to minamise and close and returm to full screen. with some way to drag and drop files between windows or drag files into apps ie to make playlists

I guess HP just acquired a whole bunch of patents...

$1.2 Billion mistake. Unbelievable they paid that much for a dead company walking. They could've gotten Palm for probably much less than half that in 4-6 months.

Did Carly Fiorina come back or something? I thought they'd paid her enough millions of $$ NOT to come to work and foul things up she would stay away...

Like evilJazz said, patents PATENTS!!! and WebOS

I think it just depends on the functionality you want from having several windows. I don't expect window management like a full sized PC has. But I do for example, want to be able to play a video and watch it while working on something else on the tablet. Or to be able to say have a PDF open while say working on a small report.

For that I don't think we need a full windows management system complete with borders, individual controls for each app, etc.. So stripped down windows management that still enables some limited windowing would work for me. For example, hiding all menu and buttons just so you see the main information (the article for a PDF or the video itself without all the unnecessary menus). Though that would be tricky to create.

Edit: Interestingly I heard on the radio that HP wants to join the smartphone fray..

WHY?

In between Android, iPhone, Maemo/Meego + Symbian with QT compatibility, RIM with Blackberries, and Windows 7 Phone Series how many more operating systems can developers feasible support.

Unless they plan on integrating WebOS with their own flavor of Android (like SenseUI for HTC devices).

WebOS UI on MeeGo might make more sense. Or WebOS layered on top of Android. At least then they would be able to leverage the development and apps on either platform in addition to their WebOS specific functionality, rather than strike out alone.

WebOS outside of the US is not doing well, and it hasn't done that well *in* the US either.

There are too many OSes now... some consolidation would seem sensible.

i'm predicting apple and hp suing each other in six months.

Thats the only thing that HP was after the patents that Palm owns. The patents only that palm owns as a corporation is worth way more than 1.2b. And the reason they said WebOS a prize.
Why do you think Apple being so nosy, did not do jack when Palm was screwing around with their proprietary iTunes for Palm pre. As Apple's nature why did they not drag them to courts? because Palm owns so many patents that Apple is utilizing, with which it can take down the whole company.
I do not know why but I see a very dark cloud over Apple for this whole month. Prototype being public, MS backing HTC with the patents it owns to held out against Apple's law suit and now HP another prosporous company owning rights over Palm's patents, which Apple has been using, for ex. the touch screen dial pad and the download patterns inside OS had been patent owned by Palm since 1987.
Ohh man 2010 is going to be a hilarious, same time nasty year.

This could potentially be good news for the Qt ecosystem as well since WebOS can run Qt apps.