HP has decided to discontinue its operations for webOS devices – TouchPad tablet and webOS phones. Hence, now there will not be another HP TouchPad tablet or any HP Palm Pre device in future as the company has decided to pull back its webOS hardware operations.
According to a recent report, HP is planning to make webOS available for licensing to laptop manufacturers. In a way, HP will now focus on planning to push webOS software through its Personal Systems Group which will run separately from HP.
HP bought Palm last year in April. During the HP’s acquisition of Palm, the company lost Matias Duarte, vice president for Human Interface and user experience, Palm. Duarte joined Google as director for Android user experience and is currently working to create a uniform and streamlined experience between Android devices with the Ice Cream Sandwich update. That could have been a Duarte’s personal move but he played a vital role in development of the webOS.
At Palm, webOS was its biggest strength to regain its market share in the smartphone business. But with the slow-pace of development and very limited number of devices, not many were able to gain access to the Palm webOS based devices.
Now HP Palm’s focus will shift from mobile devices to the personal systems group where webOS software will play a major role. Obviously the company will support the HP Palm webOS smartphones and TouchPad tablet till it can. Considering the webOS mobile devices phase-out, the HP Palm TouchPad and Palm Pre 3 launch in India does not seem to be on the charts.