Not a good sign for the US economy, but nevertheless HP has decided to add more people to the number of the unemployed. The company will axe as many as 525 jobs from the webOS division, following plans of its shutdown.
Sources talking to AllThingsD said layoffs are beginning this week. HP has confirmed that it has been axing jobs, but have not confirmed the numbers, saying in a statement “As communicated on August 18, HP will discontinue the development of webOs devices within the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2011, which ends Oct. 31, 2011.”
“As part of this decision, the webOS GBU is undergoing a reduction in workforce. Today’s actions are part of this initiative. During this time, we stand by our commitment to our webOS customers and will work to ensure that support and service for customers are not adversely affected. HP is exploring ways to leverage webOS software.”
The company has already announced that the webOS platform was still going to continue and moved the software division to another part of the company, the hardware side aren’t that lucky and appears to be where most of the cuts are made.
It is apparently discussing licensing it to other manufacturers, but who would? HTC. Motorola, Sony Ericsson and Samsung have Android. Nokia is in bed with Microsoft and Windows Phone 7. The only one would be, um, ZTE?