Related Articles
It seems we may finally know the fate of Hewlett-Packard’s WebOS unit.
HP has scheduled a companywide meeting for 10:30 a.m. PT tomorrow, during which CEO Meg Whitman is expected to reveal what the company intends to do with the troubled mobile operating system, according to a PreCentral.net report.
HP representatives declined to comment.
An announcement on the unit’s fate was expected in early November, but Whitman delayed the decision, saying, “It’s really important to me to make the right decision, not the fast decision.”
The mobile platform’s future has been in limbo since then-CEO Leo Apotheker announced during an August earnings call that the company would discontinue operations for WebOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and WebOS phones. His proposal was to transform the company from a consumer-electronics product manufacturer to a business-class software and consulting services provider.
However, the unit’s fate has been up in the air since the company’s board ousted Apotheker in September and replaced him with Whitman, the former chief executive at eBay.
With its $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm in July 2010, HP had a mobile operating system of its own and was suddenly relevant in the smartphone industry. However, despite critical praise, the operating system failed to gain traction in the crowded mobile OS market.
The company was previously rumored to be reviewing a proposed deal that would net it several hundred million dollars for the unit, but apparently that offer wasn’t enticing enough to immediately sway Whitman.
