Verizon Wireless announced Jan. 25 availability of two modified versions of Palm's WebOS-based smartphones, the Palm Pre Plus and the newly WiFi-enabled Palm Pixi Plus. Meanwhile, Palm announced that its WebOS developer program is now open to all developers, and plans to launch a WebOS plugin development kit, says eWEEK.

The Palm Pre line of smartphones and the new TouchPad tablet computer, are very good products, but they have not been doing well in the market place. Apple, with iPhone and the iPad, has a near choke-hold on that market segment.

"Jon Rubinstein just made it official during their financial results conference call, folks: Palm is only going to develop webOS devices from now on. Say goodbye to Palm-branded Windows Mobile Devices..."

Sprint and Verizon Wireless have released Palm's upgraded 1.4 version of the Linux-based WebOS for Palm Pre and Palm Pixi smartphones. Ofering much-anticipated video capture and editing functionality plus improved messaging features, WebOS 1.4 arrives shortly after Palm announced lowered investment guidance due to disappointing smartphone sales.

Ok, alright, that last one is a stretch, but back on August 19 2011, after HP had announced that it “will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones,” I suggested in a blog post (see what HP should do with webOS), that “to not let webOS be a failed distribution, here’s what I think HP should do with webOS – make it a free, Linux distribution, such that the

Palm revealed the webOS 2.0 SDK beta today and with it, the company gave an outline of the new features expected in webOS 2.0. The Linux-based OS will support multi-tasking through a feature called Stacks, which organizes similar applications into tidy, um, stacks.

Hewlett-Packard confirmed during its Aug. 19 earnings call that a device running its recently acquired Palm WebOS operating system will ship sometime in early 2011. Although the company executive who confirmed the "product" offered no other details, the general assumption is that HP will load WebOS onto a tablet-like device.

Palm announced its WebOS Linux platform yesterday, along with a smartphone to run it. To be sold by Sprint in the first half of 2009, the 3G-enabled Palm Pre features a slide-out keyboard, WiFi, GPS, 3-megapixel camera, 3.1-inch touchscreen, and Palm's homegrown "WebOS" Linux phone stack.

AT&T announced plans to launch five Android devices from Dell, HTC, and Motorola in the first half of the year, as well as two Palm WebOS phones, say reports. In separate announcements, AT&T and T-Mobile said they had completed upgrades to provide HSPA 7.2 service across their 3G networks, says eWEEK.