Though Hewlett-Packard was unable to produce webOS devices that consumers were interested in buying — at a positive margin, at least — CEO Meg Whitman still thinks the beleaguered platform has legs. After unsuccessfully trying to sell or license webOS, HP decided late last year to donate its $1.2 billion platform to the open source community. The firm still plans to launch new webOS devices in the future, however, and Meg Whitman explained HP’s position while speaking with CRN. Read on for more. ...

Jon Rubinstein, the former CEO of Palm, has left HP. AllThingsD broke the news Friday afternoon, noting that Rubinstein had served his promised 12-24 month tenure with the company before leaving. “Jon has fulfilled his commitment and we wish him well,” HP spokeswoman Mylene Mangalindan told AllThingsD. Rubinstein led the team responsible for the original iPod and left Apple in 2006 to eventually join Palm as CEO in 2009. While at Palm, Rubinstein was responsible for, among other projects, the develop...

HP recently made the decision to open source webOS, the mobile operating system it acquired when it bought Palm in April, 2010. While it’s arguable that HP was responsible for the demise of webOS, several former Palm executives told The New York Times that the operating system was doomed from the start. “Palm was ahead of its time in trying to build a phone software platform using web technology, and we just weren’t able to execute such an ambitious and breakthrough design,” former senior director...

There’s no question about it: HP made one of the biggest blunders of the year when it comes to how the company handled Palm and webOS. During the past 12 months, HP relieved one CEO who was hired less than a year earlier in October 2010, killed off its webOS hardware, hired another CEO, brought webOS back from the dead and then open sourced it. The company also announced that it would discontinue its Pre, Veer and TouchPad products, but then flip-flopped and said we can expect new webOS devices in the f...

Hewlett-Packard has made some wild decisions regarding Palm and webOS following the acquisition in 2010. HP bought Palm for $1.2 billion in April of last year, killed webOS hardware, and then reportedly tried to sell Palm and the dead operating system for $1.2 billion, VentureBeat said Wednesday. Among the companies approached by HP? Facebook. According to the report, HP tried to offload webOS to the social network but the company was “practically laughed out of the room” by Facebook executive...

Amazon is reportedly a front runner among multiple companies currently in talks with Hewlett-Packard to purchase its struggling webOS business. VentureBeat cites an anonymous “well-placed source” in reporting the HP is looking to dump what’s left of Palm and webOS as quickly as possible, and Amazon is nearing a deal to make the acquisition. Read on for more. (more…)

HP will lay off as many as 525 employees from its Palm division this week AllThingsD reported on Tuesday. HP killed off its webOS mobile operating system in mid-August when it also announced it would discontinue the development of webOS devices such as the TouchPad and Palm Pre family of smartphones. “As part of this decision, the webOS GBU is undergoing a reduction in workforce,” an HP spokesperson explained. “Today’s actions are part of this initiative. During this time, we stand by ...

BGR has exclusively learned that Hewlett-Packard Executive Vice President Todd Bradley is looking to leave HP. While HP reported last week that the company plans to discontinue its webOS smartphones and tablets and is interested in splitting off the PC business, we have heard that Todd Bradley has been considering a departure from HP for several months. “He’s out interviewing for every CEO job he can,” a source familiar with Bradley’s plans told us. With the drastic change in directi...

Oh nooo. That was the first thought that crossed my mind as I began to read Jon Zilber’s post on HP’s company blog. Quoting Mark Twain? Oh no he didn’t. In a nutshell, Zilber’s intent was to correct the world’s press, which collectively played Taps while standing over webOS’s grave this past week. ”To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports about the demise of webOS have been off the mark,” Zilber wrote. ”HP has made these tough decisions to ensure that our effor...

When Hewlett-Packard announced in April of 2010 that it planned to acquire Palm for $1.2 billion, I sent the following email to a friend on the software team at Palm: “Congrats on the stay of execution, buddy. I give it 18 months.” Of course I was jabbing him and later went on to offer more sincere congratulations in subsequent emails, but as they say, many a word of truth is spoken in jest. Here we are less than 16 short months after HP’s announcement, and webOS is no more. Well, to be fai...

Woh. HP on Thursday announced that it is putting an abrupt end to its efforts with webOS. The company says it will “discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.” The news comes just ahead of the company’s third-quarter earnings report. HP also confirmed that it may spin off its PC business and that it is currently in talks with Autonomy regarding “a possib...

While HP holds a $100-off sale of its own from Friday through Sunday, the product peddlers over at Woot managed to procure an unknown number of webOS tablets on Friday, and it’s offering them at a big discount. Woot is currently selling the 16GB HP TouchPad tablet — new, not refurbished — for $379.99. Tack on the site’s customary $5 shipping and you’re still saving $15 compared to the lowest price we’ve seen for the slate. We reviewed the HP TouchPad back in June and we found that...

While HP didn’t exactly hit the ground running following its Palm acquisition, webOS is still one of our favorite mobile operating systems and we can’t wait for the Pre3 to drop at some point this summer. With that said, it looks like HP is moving some executives around, and for good reason. Jon Rubenstein, who was vice president and general manager of HP’s webOS global business unit is moving into an executive role as senior vice president of product innovation for the Personal Systems Gro...

According to a new report from comScore, 1 in 3 Americans now own a smartphone. Google’s Android OS is ahead of the pack with a 38.1% share of the market during the 3-month period ending in May — up 5.1% from the last report in February. Apple’s iOS operating system jumped 1.4 percentage points to a 26.6% share, and RIM’s BlackBerry OS fell 4.3% to a 24.7% share of the market. Microsoft also dropped from a 7.7% share to a 4.8% share, and HP’s webOS fell from a 2.8% share to a 2.4% sh...