Oh boy! This must be a big shocking news for webOS die-hrad fans. World’s No.1 PC vendor HP has decided to cease its mobile operating system and will no longer sell webOS tablets and smartphones devices powered by the webOS software, including TouchPad, Pre 3, and Veer. HP states 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.” The decision to kill webOS certainly wasn’t made lightly, and numerous factors doubtlessly brought to the HP’s ultimate decision to put an end to its webOS products. It’s really sad to see a potentially successful OS to go just like that.
HP has acquired Palm for $1.2 billion in April of 2010. We heard the company would be open to licensing the OS to interested hardware manufacturers. But, the tech giant hasn’t yet said exactly what it will do with webOS. Sadly, HP isn’t only terminating its TouchPad and Pre webOS-based products, but also trying to spin-off their PC business, which is the largest PC business in the world. Well, HP’s Stephen DeWitt says “We are not walking away from webOS.” They will continue efforts to advance and perhaps license the OS, but it is almost end of the road for webOS. In fact the WebOS was one of the finest mobile operating systems on the market, but they had no idea to market it, and the missteps made HP to kill it at the moment.
According to a source, AT&T has rather unsurprisingly cancelled orders for HP’s Pre 3. Both AT&T and Verizon were supposed to launch the Pre 3 handset with Skype integration. Here is the proof for AT&T’s decision:
So webOS die-hard fans..completely blown by this news? RIP webOS.
[Source: Press Release]