Techcrunch is reporting that HP has decided to kill the webOS phones and tablets. I am sad, but not surprised considering headlines like Best Buy asks HP to take back its TouchPads have been hogging the limelight. I remember being  super excited when I saw the Pre with the webOS for the first time. As for webOS,  it is just so beautiful and functional.
But, Palm slagged off and the might of iOS and Android pushed it into obscurity. Palm ran into financial woes and then was acquired by HP. Â There was a lot of positive energy and everyone was optimistic what webOS will do with the financial backup of HP. In hindsight, they didn’t do much. I wonder how HP can use webOS now. Windows 8 is itself moving into touch territory so there is no room for another touch-friendly OS alongside it. Apparently, HP will push webOS into appliances and cars. I am not very hopeful.
There are two things I wonder about:
HP bought Palm for $1.2 billion. This experiment failed and they have no foothold at all in the mobile market. Every other desktop manufacturer is invested in Android and/or Windows Phone. Pretty smart management huh !
There were rumors that Palm will be bought by Nokia. They desperately needed each other. Only if Nokia would have fired CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo earlier.
Photo: Flickr/o2ukofficial