HP’s Former CEO Leo Apotheker Killed WebOS

Cnet: In a recent interview with a book author, HP CTO Phil McKinney revealed some more details about HP’s decision to abandon the webOS operating system it acquired when it purchased Palm. “Palm was going to be given three years to basically get itself positioned to be a market leader in its space,” said McKinney. “Now, fast forward to July of 2011 and, one, you had a swap out of the CEOs–Leo comes in as the new CEO–and HP, for whatever reason–I was not a part of this decision–made the decision to kill it one year into the three year program. This is an example of not committing long term to the resources and not having patience for innovation, and I’m disappointed that HP made that decision.”

HP purchased Palm seven months before Apotheker took over as CEO. The webOS-based TouchPad tablet was on the market for just two months before HP decided to cancel production. Apotheker was CEO of the company for less than one year.