Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20 and Brian X Chen has a great tick-tock detailing the initial fall - and continuing fall - of WebOS. The interviews are quite telling, including a quote from Paul Mercer:“Palm was ahead of its time in trying to build a phone software platform using Web technology, and we just weren’t able to execute such an ambitious and breakthrough design,” said Paul Mercer, former senior director of software at Palm, who oversaw the interface design of WebOS and recruited crucial members of the team. “Perhaps it never could have been executed because the technology wasn’t there yet.”