>Harbour is almost interesting. By their own admission it "sort of does" iOS. And there is no Android support, nor is it planned. Likewise for WebOS (see below).

I think in Harbour/Vulcan there is not enough creative spark left to span all platforms. SQLite is already there, does not need GUI.


>Which would you rather a housekeeping supervisor requisition toilet paper, etc., with: a computer that sits in a room somewhere, or a $300 7" tablet that's in a holster that she has on her, and which can also be used for Skype calls within the business? It's a no-brainer.

Not only a holster: it fits easily in inner pockets in some jackets and military style pant side pockets ..
Either 7' or one of the 5.x' extralarge phones with a good camera to read barcodes or mechanical counters -
not all utility company use signaling counters. Investing in a couple of better readers is cheaper than exchanging all meters.

>And that market will be iOS, Android and WebOS (if Amazon buys WebOS and actually uses it, rather than just uses the patents).

I think it is either Google buying it to circumvent oracle (depending how clean it is and how easily dalvik apps can be made to run on it) or it is a dead duck. Not even Samsung wanted it to fusion with Bada...

regards

thomas