Today HP announced that they were dropping all development of WebOS devices including the TouchPad and the WebOS phones. In addition they will be spinning off the PC side of their business. They have also purchased a company called Autonomy (Enterprise Information Management) for $10 billion. What will this mean for users of HP PCs and the TouchPad?

It is a very strange more for them to first release a new product (Feb 2011) and pump a good deal on money into advertising and then drop the whole product line in less than 6 months. This is going to cost them quite a bit of money.

Hopefully some company will step up and purchase the rights to WebOS and not leave existing users out in the cold on this. WebOs is a nice operating system but it looks like HP is bowing out due to lackluster sales compared to IOS and Android devices. You can expect to see deep discounts on TouchPad units everywhere but I’m not sure this would be a good purchase because you are just getting an orphaned product.

On the PC side of things one wonders how this will affect HP server, PC and printer sales/support. If HP does the spin-off will they retain ownership of the company or will they look for a buyer or the new company. Competitors like Cisco and Dell will certainly go after server and network hardware sales by suggesting that HP is having issues.

With the spin-off announcement buyers looking to update equipment may also think twice before purchasing HP technology products wondering what the future will hold. Our thoughts are that the installed base of HP PCs, Servers and Printer will keep this spin off alive and well.

The purchase on Autonomy along with the PC and WebOS moves seem to indicate HP is moving in a new direction and will be focusing on Enterprise Data Management and less on the consumer sales area.

Only time will tell how this will turn out.
Let us know what you think about these moves by HP, Good, Bad, undecided.

Additional information about this announcement can be found in HPs news release today.
http://h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=71087&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1598003&highlight=

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