HP has called last week’s rumours that they will be shutting down their WebOS division as completely “unfounded”.
Jumping to the defense of the beleaguered WebOS, Todd Bradley, a former chief exec at Palm and the current VP of HP has spoken to Bloomberg to quash the rumours, which originated from the Guardian.
“We’re continuing to invest in webOS software, in fact last week we refreshed it with a [software] update. Our next focus now that we’ve resolved the questions around the PC business is to determine how we’ll best utilise webOS and those great software assets that we have,” he said.
It does seem like an odd state of affairs, having canned their tablet which runs the OS – the next logical step would be to shut down the division or sell it to the highest bidder.
If they do plan to sell, then today’s comments might be part of a concerted effort to make WebOS look like something that is actually worth buying.
The Guardian, last week quoted an anonymous HP employee working in the webOS division as saying, “There’s a 95% chance we all get laid off between now and November, and I for one am thinking it’s for the best.”
But today’s news is great for Touchpad owners who can expect to still get some software updates for their tablets and the OS.
However, the future of WebOS is still unclear, and it still could get canned if HP don’t want to continue with it or they can’t find a suitable buyer.
For now, the future of webOS remains unclear – but the PC division got a stay of execution, so it’s not beyond the realms of possibility HP might save the OS, especially as it has quite a large install-base after last month’s fire-sale of the Touchpad.
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