While Apple, Google and Microsoft Corp. are hiring developers of mobile applications, Hewlett-Packard, which last month decided to discontinue its webOS-based devices along with further development of the operating system itself, confirmed this week plans to lay off approximately half of a thousand of webOS developers.
“As communicated on August 18, HP will discontinue the development of webOs devices within the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2011, which ends October 31, 2011. As part of this decision, the webOS GBU is undergoing a reduction in workforce. Today’s actions are part of this initiative. During this time, we stand by our commitment to our webOS customers and will work to ensure that support and service for customers are not adversely affected. HP is exploring ways to leverage webOS software,” said a spokesperson for HP.
Sources close to HP told AllThingsD that the company plans to lay off as many as 525 employees, and that it already began firing developers of webOS software this week.
The start of massive layoffs at the Palm division of Hewlett-Packard is essentially the beginning of the countdown for the webOS operating system itself. While up-to-date and relatively competitive now, without further development webOS will quickly find itself behind competing operating systems, primarily Apple iOS and Google Android.
HP is currently looking forward to license webOS, or even sell it, to a third party. It will be much harder for the company to find a new owner for the OS that is outdated compared to leading rivals.
Tags: HP, Hewlett-Packard, webOS, Palm, Business
Comments currently:
2
Discussion started: 09/21/11 11:29:09 PM
Latest comment: 09/22/11 08:37:47 AM
[1-2]
1.
fyi...hp is still developing for webOS. Its the hardware they discontinued development for. You even quoted that. How you could misunderstand that is beyond me. They separated the software division and the hardware division. Software went to another department, while hardware stayed with GBU. Those laid off were of the hardware persuasion, not developers. This is the problem with the internet. Anyone can all themselves a, quote/unquote, "reporter". Kinda sad.
1
0
[
Posted by: Darkgift
|
Date: 09/21/11 11:29:09 PM]
2.
I totally agree, people who don't research before they post a misleading article do nothing but hurt the people that actually care. You sir are an awful reporter, move along. HP webOS is still under development and is actually more alive today than it has been in the last year.
1
0
[
Posted by: bradleyculbertson
|
Date: 09/22/11 08:37:46 AM]
[1-2]
Make Home Page
Add to Favorites
Xbitlabs on Facebook
XbitLabs is using Twitter
Windows Live Alerts
