X

HP to reveal WebOS decision tomorrow?

The company has reportedly called an all-hands meeting for Friday to reveal what it intends to do with the troubled mobile operating system.

Steven Musil Night Editor / News
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
Expertise I have more than 30 years' experience in journalism in the heart of the Silicon Valley.
Steven Musil
Hewlett-Packard

It seems we may finally know the fate of Hewlett-Packard's WebOS unit.

HP has scheduled a companywide meeting for 10:30 a.m. PT tomorrow, during which CEO Meg Whitman is expected to reveal what the company intends to do with the troubled mobile operating system, according to a PreCentral.net report.

HP representatives declined to comment.

An announcement on the unit's fate was expected in early November, but Whitman delayed the decision, saying, "It's really important to me to make the right decision, not the fast decision."

The mobile platform's future has been in limbo since then-CEO Leo Apotheker announced during an August earnings call that the company would discontinue operations for WebOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and WebOS phones. His proposal was to transform the company from a consumer-electronics product manufacturer to a business-class software and consulting services provider.

However, the unit's fate has been up in the air since the company's board ousted Apotheker in September and replaced him with Whitman, the former chief executive at eBay.

With its $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm in July 2010, HP had a mobile operating system of its own and was suddenly relevant in the smartphone industry. However, despite critical praise, the operating system failed to gain traction in the crowded mobile OS market.

The company was previously rumored to be reviewing a proposed deal that would net it several hundred million dollars for the unit, but apparently that offer wasn't enticing enough to immediately sway Whitman.