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HP’s WebOS chief told staff "We are not walking away from WebOS" despite the withdrawal from WebOS hardware.
An insider account of an ‘all hands’ meeting within the WebOS business unit revealed by Thisismynext, WebOS global business unit VP Steven DeWitt said that HP intends to continue plans to license the Palm-acquired mobile operating system to other hardware manufacturers.
DeWitt appeared to be caught on the hop, adding that "Clearly, we don’t have all the answers today," but described a move to plot a course ahead for the troubled OS within the next two weeks.
Responding to a staff question about licensing to existing Android giants, PSG business unit VP Todd Bradley pointed out that WebOS was so far designed to work on a single system-on-chip solution from Qualcomm and that WebOS was not yet ready to run on alternative hardware which would be required for wider adoption of the OS.
HP’s choice of aging hardware also played a role in the relatively poor specification of the TouchPad. DeWitt and Bradley reportedly admitted to staff that uncompetitive hardware had hurt the launch of WebOS.
DeWitt also revealed that the WebOS unit could expect job losses.
