Tek-Bull

HP Didn’t Kill WebOS – It Will Still Be Updated

If you are a bit involved in reading tech blogs or you just like to be in the “tech world”, then you know that earlier in the week, HP allegedly “killed” webOS. Immediately after the announcement, almost every single store in North America that sold electronic equipment dropped the price on HP TouchPads like crazy, from $500 to $99, in an attempt to liquidate remaining stocks. Many thought that the death of webOS would mean that HP would end bug fixes, updates, and support for the product, meaning that you would effectively be buying a product that has a shelf life.

There’s good news. Even though HP is pulling out of production for physical hardware (smartphones and tablets and possibly the entire PC business), Senior Vice President Stephen DeWitt says the company hasn’t given up on webOS just yet:

“The webOS is not dead. We’re going to continue to evolve it, update and support it. We stand by it.”

So I’m still trying to figure out what it means, but we know for a fact that your new Touchpad is going to last you for a longer period of time than expected. It doesn’t end there, either:

“The whole world isn’t just about tablets and phones,” DeWitt said yesterday. “There are going to be appliances of so many different sizes and shapes in the future that are going to require a human interface for data.”

The Touchpad was just a few weeks off the press when HP announced it was cancelling the program. The early adopters who purchased the TouchPad felt burned by the fact that they bought a $500 tablet that is now worth $100, but, according to DeWitt, “We’re going to obviously take care of every TouchPad customer.” So that’s not bad. I know that HP got a whole bunch of bad rep for this move but I think they are handling it in a professional manner.

Via Bloomberg