HP hires former Apple exec to pitch webOS to developers

HP has hired Richard Kerris, Apple's former Senior Director of Worldwide Developer Relations, to help attract developers to the webOS platform as it attempts to challenge Apple in the smartphone and tablet markets.

HP on Wednesday unveiled several new webOS products, including the TouchPad tablet, as part of its "double down" on the platform. HP executives have said that webOS was the company's primary reason for acquiring Palm in April 2010.

"Today we're embarking on a new era of webOS with the goal of linking a wide family of HP products through the best mobile experience available," said Jon Rubinstein, senior vice president and general manager for the Palm Global Business Unit at HP.

During Wednesday's event, Rubinstein revealed that HP plans to bring webOS to Windows PCs to increase the environment's installed base.

TechCrunch reports that HP announced its hiring of Apple veteran Richard Kerris during a developer gathering after the event. Kerris, who previously served as Senior Director for Apple's Worldwide Developer Relations group, will join HP in a similar role as VP of Worldwide Developer Relations. In between working at Apple and now HP, Kerris served as the CTO of Lucasfilm for 3 years.

Kerris "held numerous positions at Apple, from managing special projects for the applications division to managing the company's technical marketing strategies for professional applications" from 2001 to 2007, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Given that Kerris' role at Apple was to convince developers for other platforms to build their apps for OS X and assist them in the process, HP appears to have selected him in hopes of bolstering developer interest in webOS. Kerris has his work cutout for him, as webOS is the underdog in the growing mobile space.

A recent comScore report revealed that Palm lost 0.5 percent market share from the September 2010 quarter through the end of the year, leaving it with just 3.7 percent of US smartphone subscribers.

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22 Comments

jd_in_sb

said about 13 years ago

HP has an impossible task ahead of them but I really respect them for trying.

sflocal

said about 13 years ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by jd_in_sb

HP has an impossible task ahead of them but I really respect them for trying.

I tend to agree. Kerris left just before the introduction of the iPhone. All the developers didn't come till afterwards. Worked at Lucasfilm, a place where everyone wants to work at. Seems that his experience at attracting developers is somewhat untested so I wish them luck.

cg0def

said about 13 years ago

You seem to suggest that HP is hoping to compete with Apple and this is not at all the case. You should keep in mind that while HP did buy Palm their ideas for WebOS have nothing to do with the misguided Palm desire to fight the "man" which they considered to be Apple (go figure). HP has a serious problem with east Asian competitors and the fact that they all offere essentially the same product i.e. an Android device or a Windows PC only HP tends to cost more.

WebOS is a huge problem for Android and not for Apple. After all HP products are cheaper than Android and are going after a market that is not going to get an iPhone because it is too expensive. No offence to Google but if Android 3.0 is the best they can do for tablets than WebOS will eat them alive.

white rabbit

said about 13 years ago

I have been insulted on this site and the moderators don't give a stuff.
These people who insult should be banned, instead I am being ignored or belittled.
If these moderators cannot do their job properly, I think they should step down.
Come one ban me, this will be just like censorship, because you don't like criticism right.

mdriftmeyer

said about 13 years ago

Kerris's work for Apple's technical marketing strategies surrounding their professional applications better not be what they are banking on.

There is a reason he no longer held that position during 2007.

Quote:

Kerris was also senior director of Developer Technologies for Apple's Worldwide Developer Relations group where he managed teams supporting Unix, Java and Cocoa developers working to bring their applications to Mac OS X.

This is the last guy I would have hired to perform these tasks. No offense to him, but this was one of the glaring problems at NeXT. We had Marketing Management who had no technical backgrounds in applied sciences and thus no experience in those fields and zero contacts and/or pull to expand into those markets. Of course, we also had technical guys with absolutely zero marketing and business experience who couldn't manage themselves out of a paper bag after the merger, but I digress.Richard's background in Communications and all his non-technical work history in the Computer Graphics Arts is commendable:

http://web.mac.com/rkerris/RichardKe.../About_Me.html

However, he has no technical background in any applied science and it doesn't come as a surprise that Apple has suffered severely in growing their Professional Markets beyond the Visual Arts.

Getting AutoCAD in 2010 has to be the fruits of labor by management that was put in place after his departure and other departures.

For Apple to continue growing it's Mac Markets [which continues to thrive and expand quarter over quarter], getting technical management with a taste for networking and making relations [Traditionally known as the MS Windows centric engineering space] will them to have the talent in place that can walk the walk while talking the talk.

For me, seeing the emergence of OpenCL made it clear they were going to take those markets seriously and offer an end-to-end solution where the iPad and iPhone/iPod Touch are two more tiers of devices that can attract big industry heavies in the Automotive Industry, Structural Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace, NASA, etc.

I don't see how Richard's prior 3 years at LucasFilm is really going to be a big catch for HP. Personally, his career is in the Animation world and I'm surprised he has ventured out again.

Best luck to him.

I would like to see a few articles on the talent that has taken his place and other individuals positions over the past 3 years to give us all a broader understanding as to where they may or may not focus their talents in the near to far future.