It’s been just 16 months since HP acquired Palm and this morning HP has announced that they will “discontinue operations for webOS devices.” After releasing the Veer and TouchPad, HP has determined that the devices have “not met internal milestones and financial targets.” And while this isn’t the death of webOS, with the company saying that they will “continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward,” it is pretty close.
This is in no way good news. webOS was definitely falling behind the competition, but it still had plenty of potential to become great. HP just couldn’t do fulfill that potential, with a lack of good hardware or updated software.
It isn’t fair to those who have bought the Veer or TouchPad, especially after it’s release just weeks ago in the US, but who could blame HP. The devices were obviously not selling. But it’s still sad to see Palm, a company that was once quite impressive, become so boring and unprofitable. Rest In Peace.