$99 HP TouchPad: WebOS Faces Termination in November
WebOS, the operating system used to power the now infamous HP TouchPad tablet will be axed sometime in November by the company, according to a recent report from the Guardian.
“But the Guardian understands that HP is to shut down its webOS division, acquired for $1.2bn in April 2010 when it bought Palm,” wrote the site.
This could mean over 500 Hewlett Packard employees losing their jobs.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
“There’s a 95% chance we all get laid off between now and November,” said an HP employee to the Guardian regarding the situation with webOS.
The beginning of the end for webOS was when the HP TouchPad became discontinued back in the summer making the item extremely scarce and in demand since the price for the 16GB model dropped to $99, an amount unheard of in the tablet market.
HP was considering stopping the manufacturing and sale of hardware, but its new CEO Meg Whitman recently announced that the company would continue to product PC’s and tablets.
The new HP tablets will run on Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 operating system.
This announcement left webOS in jeopardy since the company does not have much use for it anymore.
No official statements have been made regarding webOS, but the Guardian’s internal sources revealed that the software division will close in the near future.
The HP TouchPad will be available in one last shipment at Best Buy tomorrow.
The retail outlet will offer the 32GB version for $150 with the purchase of a new HP computer.
HP may decide to put webOS for sale and some industry insiders are suggesting that Amazon might be interested in purchasing it.
