HP to stop producing WebOS hardware
Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 9:56PM It would be impossible to write about anything tech related today without talking about the bombshell dropped by HP today. Just so I get the wording just right this is what it said in the press release:
"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."
Originally HP announced two phones, and a tablet to be released this year with WebOS. As of today only one phone and a tablet have hit the market. Both products seem to be complete flops, which most likely prompted this decision. So how bad must the sales be to completely give up on WebOS phones and tablets after spending 1.2 Billion dollars on Palm just over a year ago?
The part of the statement that stands out to me is that they mention webOS devices such as tablets and phones, but that does not imply PCs which HP has been saying they would put the OS onto. HP predicted that webOS would be on 20% of their products in the not so distant future, but that was before the huge flop of these two devices.
So what happens now? Does webOS just go away and die? Will HP keep it and put it on computers and printers? I have not had much experience with it, but it is a great OS, and it should still be on phones. The hardware it was paired with let down the OS. If webOS was on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 it would sell, but instead it was on a heavy, bloated tablet in a sea of slender super models. The HP Veer is a tiny phone that even if it wanted to couldn't compete with full sized devices. I honestly think that if the Pre 3 came out before the Veer it would have done better, and this whole situation might have been avoided.
Sadly we won't be able to know what would have happened, but we know where we stand now. Hopefully webOS will find it's way back onto phones at some point, and on tablets. Of all the tablet operating systems that I have seen webOS seems the best suited for the tablet form factor.