The tech world was rocked earlier this week when Google announced its purchase of Motorola Mobility, but that was nothing compared with the bombshell HP dropped today. HP announced in one fell swoop that it is abandoning both the PC and mobile device markets. PCs will live on, but the demise of WebOS eliminates what should have been a major player in the mobile field.
Not quite seven weeks ago HP launched the WebOS-based TouchPad tablet with great fanfare and high hopes. It was immediately hit with customer backlash over poor performance, and received tepid reviews. HP cut the price three or four times in the course of a week and still couldn't drive demand, leading Best Buy to complain about being stuck with hundreds of thousands of unsold TouchPads and demanding that HP buy them back.
WebOS will go down in history as the mobile OS that was technically capable--or even superior--but just couldn't find the right combination of vision, hardware, and marketing to capture any interest in the market. When HP bought the flailing Palm, many thought it would be just the thing WebOS needed to compete head to head with Apple's iOS and Google's Android. We can see how well that worked out.
WebOS could have been a contender. WebOS should have been a contender. HP had the financial resources, marketing muscle, and corporate presence to develop and promote WebOS and take the reins from RIM as the de facto mobile OS for business. Instead, it launched a half-baked tablet, scrambled around for seven weeks with no coherent marketing vision, and threw in the towel without even putting up a decent fight...
Continue reading: Here
Not quite seven weeks ago HP launched the WebOS-based TouchPad tablet with great fanfare and high hopes. It was immediately hit with customer backlash over poor performance, and received tepid reviews. HP cut the price three or four times in the course of a week and still couldn't drive demand, leading Best Buy to complain about being stuck with hundreds of thousands of unsold TouchPads and demanding that HP buy them back.
WebOS will go down in history as the mobile OS that was technically capable--or even superior--but just couldn't find the right combination of vision, hardware, and marketing to capture any interest in the market. When HP bought the flailing Palm, many thought it would be just the thing WebOS needed to compete head to head with Apple's iOS and Google's Android. We can see how well that worked out.
WebOS could have been a contender. WebOS should have been a contender. HP had the financial resources, marketing muscle, and corporate presence to develop and promote WebOS and take the reins from RIM as the de facto mobile OS for business. Instead, it launched a half-baked tablet, scrambled around for seven weeks with no coherent marketing vision, and threw in the towel without even putting up a decent fight...
Continue reading: Here
