In a press release today from HP, the company issued the following statement regarding webOS and more importantly webOS devices:
In addition, HP reported that it plans to announce that it will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.
While it might find it’s way into other products, this marks the end to webOS on mobile devices.
Well that could mean two things:
1) WebOS is dead. (I doubt it).
2) “HP” will not be handling webOS operations, but this new “Spinoff company” will be the one to handle WebOS operations.
That is what I’m thinking. They talked alot about how great WebOS is and their tablets and smartphones We’ll see. Why just stop cold turkey?
Well, as noted above, HP won’t be handling mobile devices. But, if they license webOS, it will live on through other hardware :3
Either way, it’s still a fail. They couldn’t get the Pre3 out, how long will it take ‘a new spinoff company’ to figure out *their* ass from a hole in the ground? They’ve missed the window.
The price of being grossly out of touch with the market — and even the mobile industry — was, not surprisingly, very high. How many times must it be proven that a great product does NOT sell itself?
My fingers are crossed that WebOS will be embraced and fully and appropriately marketed by SOMEONE in the mobile realm.
In the meantime, however, I can wait no longer. My Blackberry will not be replaced by a WebOS device; Android, here I come.
Dammit.
Please, HP, give webOS to the open source community. It might have a REAL future among those committed to such a great mobile OS.
I work for one of the cell providers and we were all surprised by this news. That being said, instead of trying to build up business to the Pre 3 they should have launched that phone first. Shortly after that, the Touchpad, then the Veer. The Veer really isn’t a power player like the Pre 3 could be, but it could have been pitched as the Pre 3’s little brother. At any rate, my guess is there are some Pre 3s that exsist, so we may see them hit the market in some form.
Sad news since I just got my HP Veer this month as my PALMs got waterlogged in my boat during a storm and had no choice except upgrade before the Veer was on the market long enough for me to see how it fared. It seemed the logical choice since HP and PALM merged and Web OS was an upgrade from Palm OS. NOW WHAT?
The SAD face says it all. I was counting down until Palm3 release to couple with the TouchPad….. We could have had it all… rolling in deep…HP was not good step parents to PALM. All we need is APPS!!!….HP had the product DOA.