Only a couple of weeks ago, we were telling you how much analysts reckon HP could make if it were to sell off webOS. Considering the fact that it cost HP $1.2bn to get hold of, yet saw HP bleeding to the tune of $3.3bn over the past year, you wonder if they're wishing they had given it to the next highest bidder after all.
The Q4 results and full year financials are out - and they don't make fun reading for HP. Perhaps the only good news is that sales of the TouchPad gave the manufacturer a $200m revenue boost but the bittersweet irony of that is that it could have been much higher had HP not had to sell the pads off at ridiculously reduced prices, having discontinued it almost immediately after launch.
Several leading electronics firms were linked with buying the much admired OS in recent months, including Samsung, RIM, HTC and Amazon, but HP's new boss, Meg Whitman held off the sale, saying it was "important to make the right decision, not the fact decision". In the end, Samsung said it was never going to bother anyway.
Unfortunately for HP, the Pre3, the TouchPad and WebOS seems to be jinxed. The company now faces a crossroads as we head towards 2012 - should it take the hit and run or continue to invest in an OS that seems to be loved by enthusiasts, but nobody else?
Eitherway, Whitman's job could depend on it if fortunes don't improve.
Via TechCrunch
