Technology: HP Strangles WebOS In Its Crib

August 23, 2011 by Hannibal Tabu Leave a Comment

This week, the world's largest computer maker began making moves to get out of the computer making business.

This is just as weird as it sounds, like Captain America showing up wearing a Wakandan flag. Hewlett Packard ate Compaq whole, overcame Dell to become the biggest seller of personal computers in the world. After spending more than a billion dollars on buying the company Palm just to get its hands on WebOS and then spending even more to launch the TouchPad and two new Palm Pre phones, it took less than 18 months for the company to throw in the towel after Best buy was unable to sell the TouchPad in a significant number leading retailers to begin liquidating it at $100. Now, HP is spending another $11.7 billion to buy British firm Autonomy and refocus on selling "enterprise software" to large companies.

What happened? What went wrong? What happened to "too big to fail?" Well, as Palm themselves learned when they tried to reincorporate Handspring after Palm's founders went off and made a better palmtop, when you're a set of suits it's hard to harness the abilities of a set of creators. As well, the company felt their inroads to tablet computing wouldn't look like such an embarrassing failure in comparison to the iPad (rumored 25,000 units sold from a Best Buy supply of 270,000). The head honchos at HP saw their stockpile of cash and decided to fold while there was still time.

What's next? Well, expect a massive sell off at retail of HP assets and for the computer business to find a home under another banner. As for today, it might seem unusual to see that Goliath has feet of clay, but it is interesting to see a company of that size take one look at Google and Apple and say, "no thanks, I don't wanna get into that fight."

[Source: Gizmodo, The AOL Huffington Post]

About Hannibal Tabu

Born in Rockford, Illinois; raised in Memphis, Tennessee; matriculated in
Tacoma, Washington and broadcasting live from Los Angeles, Hannibal Tabu is
a writer, a brother, a husband, a misanthrope, a son, an emcee, an uncle, a
poet, a father, a designer, a nephew, a romantic, a storyteller, and by
god, a fan. He spent more than ten years doing the journalist thing for
Vibe, Slave Trade, MTV Online, Rap Pages, America Online, the Los Angeles
Sentinel, Spinnerrack.com, Speak and The Source. Hannibal has worked as a
web designer/producer and graphic artist for American Honda, eHobbies.com,
Quicken.com, Express.com, the California Association of REALTORS, Disney
Channel, NextPlanetOver.com, Toyota Motor Sales, Kaiser Permanente,
California Bank & Trust and many more. As a poet, Hannibal has been
published in The Drumming Between Us, (sic) Vice Verse, Drumvoices Review,
Voices From Leimert Park and other anthologies, as well as being author of
the collection BORN BENEATH AN ANGRY STAR and co-author of FLIGHT MANUAL.
As a novelist, he's written THE CROWN: ASCENSION and FARAWAY (both
available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble & Smashwords) and the upcoming sci fi
political thriller ROGUE NATION. He's the winner of the 2012 Top Cow Talent Hunt, writer of Waso: Will To Power for Stranger Comics, Project: Wildfire for Legends Press, and co-writer of an issue of Watson & Holmes (alongside 2 Guns writer Steven Grant) for New Paradigm Studios. For six years he was the editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Herald-Dispatch group of newspapers, is currently the co-owner and editor-in-chief of Black geek website Komplicated at the Good
Men Project, and uses his Operative Network website (www.operative.net) to
publish his poetry, market what he's doing, rant at the world and emit
strangled cries for help. In addition to all that, Hannibal collects comic
books, has scores of action figures, DJs private parties, is a Mac OS
zealot, sings and sometimes even hosts karaoke, practices a form of
spirituality based on ancient Egyptian belief, and goes to bed every day,
secretly hoping that half the world will commit suicide in his honor.