Hewlett-Packard, 1946-2011

The news broke this afternoon: http://thisismynext.com/2011/08/18/hp-discontinue-webos-operations/

Following along on the conference call, it struck me: this is the end of the road for Hewlett-Packard, one of Silicon Valley’s foundation stones. The company might stagger on, perhaps indefinitely, but HP as we know it? As people who love computers & technology know it? 

That HP is dead, baby. That HP is dead. More after the jump.

That conference call was just sad. Every word, and I would imagine, every bodily gesture and tick serving to send one simple, stark message:

Apple, you win.

Killing off WebOS — and, despite the somewhat brave attitude expressed by WebOS supremo Stephen DeWitt in this post, that’s what is most likely to happen — is the worst move they could’ve possibly made. To combine that with selling off their PC division is simply incomprehensible.

The future of computing is most likely going to include tablets, and those tablets are going to be likely running some version of a mobile operating system. In WebOS, HP had one of the best mobile operating systems out there. By my estimation — and I’ve used every mobile OS out there currently, from iOS to RIM’s QNX to Meego/Maemo — WebOS was a well-crafted operating system, likely the second-best after iOS.

It was definitely more polished than Android, and more extensible — I could imagine a laptop running WebOS, and offering a smooth end-user experience, whereas imagining a laptop running Android was a stretch, if not a downright kludge.

I fully agree with Dieter Bohn’s take here: HP failed WebOS. I’ll go one step further: HP failed themselves. Starting with Carly Fiorina, and all the way through Leo Apotheker, the company has been flailing, staggering, and lurching. 

It’s a sad end to a great company. And to give you an idea of how sad, here’s a story I gleaned from an acquaintance:

I have kinda a funny story about this. I was invited (through my day job) to an HP event today to show us WebOS and more specifically the Touchpad. I tweeted a pic while I was there so you can see the proof.

After 2 hours of telling us how great the WebOS/TouchPad was, and HPs level of dedication in the long run, I’m drifting off…

Just as we were wrapping up I got a BBM about the news, I read the quote from the press release out loud infront of a group of about 30 people and the guys from HP. Their first reaction was it was all rumours. Until I told them it was a press release from HP>

I told them sorry to rain on your parade but it was relevant to what they were trying to pitch us.

I’d say I’m surprised…but, really, are you? Right — that’s what I thought.