Just 16 months after announcing the acquisition of Palm, HP has discontinued operations for webOS devices saying that the units have “not met internal milestones and financial targets but the company does say that it will “continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward”.
Licensing to third parties remains a possibility, but nothing has been heard on that front.
Ex-HP CEO Mark Hurd famously said in the wake of the Palm acquisition that it hadn’t bought webOS “to be in the smartphone business,” and it’d seem he’s finally gotten his way — though it would seem that his dream of deploying webOS on countless other HP devices ranging from printers to PCs would be in dire jeopardy at best. The HP TouchPad, released in June, was yet another competitor struggling in vain against the Apple iPad. Recently, HP slashed prices on the tablet but in a preliminary financial report, HP said growth is slow at just 1% and that it was renewing focus on business tools and cloud services
The news comes in the wake of a huge announcement from Google of its acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings for $12.5 billion. Traditionally a software-only company, Google is making its first foray into the hardware business. News of the Motorola acquisition set the technology world abuzz, with pundits speculating that Google would alienate its other hardware partners — HTC, Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson. The new relationship between Google and Motorola could make Google’s partners wary that competitor Motorola may be privy to inside information on Android, cutting others out of the loop.
In the wake of HP’s news, all eyes are now on key mobile players Microsoft, Nokia and RIM — the three major companies trailing clear mobile industry leaders Apple and Google — to see which OS will take on iOS and Android.
(Sources: thisismynext.com & wired.com)