Former Palm head Jon Rubinstein leaves HP, taking a long-deserved break

Jon Rubinstein, the former Apple executive who spearheaded engineering for the iPod, and then proceeded to revitalize Palm, has officially left Hewlett-Packard, the company confirmed today.

The news isn’t entirely unexpected. Rubinstein was reportedly a no-show at HP since former CEO Leo Apotheker killed off the company’s WebOS devices. Even before that his role at HP was reduced with a change to a vague “SVP of innovation” title.

An HP spokesperson told All Things Digital, … Continue Reading

HP plans for Open webOS 1.0 by September, Enyo framework out today

HP is moving forward with its plans to open source webOS, after failing to sell it off last year.

The company says it plans to complete the open sourcing process for webOS by September, which will be called Open webOS 1.0 when it’s released. Today, HP is getting the ball rolling by releasing the Enyo 1.0 Javascript framework, as well as the cross-platform Enyo 2.0 core, under open source licensing.

When HP announced its open … Continue Reading

Tough negotiator: HP wanted $1.2B for webOS and Palm’s assets (exclusive)

$1.2 billion. That’s how much HP paid for Palm last year, and it’s also how much the company was trying to sell its Palm assets for over the latter half of 2011, VentureBeat has learned.

As baffling as it may seem, HP was trying to rid itself of Palm without taking a loss on its purchase, a source with knowledge of the negotiations told us. When asked for confirmation about the pricing, an HP representative … Continue Reading

Whitman says future of webOS will be decided in two weeks

New HP CEO Meg Whitman has a tough decision about what to do with webOS, so she’s given herself a little more breathing room by saying the final call will come in two weeks.

HP, which bought webOS-creator Palm last year for $1.2 billion, is in a precarious position about what to do with the troubled mobile operating system. After HP axed the HP TouchPad and then saw incredible demand for the discontinued device at … Continue Reading

As Palm bidding continues, HP wants a sweet deal to keep webOS in printers (exclusive)

For some strange reason, HP is still really hot on the idea of mating webOS with its printers — to the point where it has become a crucial part of its negotiations to sell off its Palm assets.

In addition to settling on a good price for the Palm goodies, HP is also demanding that potential buyers license webOS back to it on the cheap for use in printers, a source with knowledge of the … Continue Reading

HP PC Boss: Shutting down of WebOS is “unfounded rumor”

The head of HP’s PC division Todd Bradley called a report yesterday that HP has decided to shut down its WebOS devision an “unfounded rumor.”

Bradley, appearing in a Bloomberg West interview last night, said that contrary to the rumors published yesterday by the Guardian, HP had not yet made up its mind, and that it will weigh all the “data and information” before making “the right decision.”

Still, the statements leave WebOS dangerously in … Continue Reading

WebOS still a goner after Whitman saves HP’s PC division?

[Update: HP has since said this is an "unfounded rumor."]

HP decided yesterday that it would, in fact, keep its massive PC business alive, but the webOS division will reportedly not be so lucky.

A report by the Guardian says the unit will be shut down, and that and up to 500 jobs could be cut along with it.

When HP’s former CEO Leo Apotheker announced the company was considering spinning off its … Continue Reading

Amazon’s Kindle Fire falls prey to patent trolls only 2 weeks after debut

Amazon is under fire for its new Kindle Fire tablet, the new target of a patent lawsuit by Smartphone Technologies of Acacia Research Corporation, a patent aggregating and licensing

Acacia Research has hit up a number of other smartphone manufacturers including blackberry creator Research in Motion (RIM) and Apple, according to PaidContent. Patent wars such as this one have forced companies into multi-million dollar settlements. RIM paid out a $612 million settlement in a case … Continue Reading

HP sacks over 500 WebOS employees

The inevitable layoffs for workers in HP’s webOS division began this week, with the company planning to let as many as 525 workers go, reports All Things Digital.

After HP killed its webOS hardware business out of the blue in August, the company had made it clear that downsizing was inevitable. While the company says it’s still committed to webOS as a software platform, that doesn’t mean much for the workers in the webOS hardware … Continue Reading

HP gave up on cool webOS devices but promises webOS PCs and printers

If recent news about HP’s bumbling of webOS is giving you a headache, you may want to stop reading right now.

The company apparently gave up on a string of cool webOS devices when it announced that it would no longer build hardware for the platform, including a fully touchscreen phone, a 7-inch tablet and a netbook, according to a post by GDGT developer Aaron Draczynski.

But worry not, HP has promised that it’s still … Continue Reading

Report: webOS ran twice as fast on an iPad 2 than on the TouchPad

One reason HP may have shuttered its webOS-based devices unit Thursday may be that its hardware was only half as fast as its major competitor.

A report from The Next Web says HP internally tested webOS on an Apple iPad 2 and found that the operating system ran over twice as fast on Apple’s hardware, suggesting HP didn’t build a good enough tablet to attract customers.

Additionally, an internal HP source reportedly said the TouchPad … Continue Reading

HP executives: ‘WebOS did not meet expectations’

Hewlett-Packard is having quite a day.

HP today announced it would acquire Autonomy, a massive enterprise software company, for $10 billion. It also announced that it would no longer develop mobile devices running Palm’s webOS mobile operating system, and that it is spinning off its personal systems group, which manufactures PCs.

The company reported quarterly revenue of $31.2 billion compared with $30.7 billion one year ago.  The company said that sales for the fourth fiscal … Continue Reading

HP launches TouchPad-exclusive magazine to promote webOS

Hewlett-Packard is getting into the magazine business!

Er… sort of.

The hardware giant is preparing to launch Pivot, a monthly digital publication exclusively offered on its forthcoming TouchPad tablet. Rather than running pure advertorial, the hybrid magazine/app guide will offer visually-driven features, reviews, columns and other content written by professional journalists and guest writers.

At first glance, Pivot appears to be yet another digital lifestyle magazine, but there’s actually a lot more going on. HP … Continue Reading