Earlier this week, HP announced during their quarterly earning call that they will halt the sale of all webOS devices, including the recently launched HP TouchPad tablet and the Pre3 smartphone.
“HP will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. The devices have not met internal milestones and financial targets. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.”
This is yet another sad day for fans of the Palm product family, but, unfortunately, not a surprising one. The sell through of webOS devices has not risen to the levels to allow HP and webOS to compete against the likes of Apple iOS and Google Android. HP executives where quick to point out that they had not killed the webOS operating system, but with the OS not available on any new devices and a dwindling customer install base, I don’t see how HP will hope to attract third-party developers to their platform if HP themselves are not fully committed to it.
The good news, if you are a die hard fan of Palm and webOS, HP is suppose to be starting a fireside sale on their remaining inventory of HP TouchPad tablets. The 16GB TouchPad is suppose to go on sale for $99, while the 32GB TouchPad will sell for $149.
Keep and eye on the HP online store for your last chance to pick up a TouchPad before they disappear.