Former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein has officially left HP, effective today. Rubinstein became CEO of Palm in 2009 and led the company’s push with webOS, eventually selling the company to HP in 2010. When asked if he had any immediate plans, Rubinstein said he was going to take a well-deserved rest after working on webOS for the last few years. And what a last few years they have been.
True to its word, HP has officially started 
Somewhere out there, perhaps in an alternate timeline or in another universe millions of light years away, Hewlett-Packard's TouchPad tablet is the one to beat after living up to its potential as an iPad killer. But in this timeline and in this universe, the TouchPad is an obsolete relic that was pulled from the market almost as quickly as it appeared, and the future of webOS lies in the hands of open source developers. Could things have worked out any differently?
Praise tech Jesus, webOS still has a pulse! The mobile OS seemingly doomed to a cold eternity in a digital graveyard has been granted an open source reprieve. Great! Only question is, what comes next?
If Hewlett-Packard were a living, breathing entity, it might have a future in politics where it's perfectly acceptable (or least expected) to flip-flop on key issues. You know, things like whether or not to forge ahead with its PC business, the $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm only to later flip webOS to the open source crowd, and the whole TouchPad fiasco. And did we mention HP is once again interested in building webOS tablets?
When HP named Meg Whitman the new CEO earlier this year, she wasted little time in firmly reversing the course set by Leo Apotheker, her predecessor, and declaring that the company would be keeping its PC business after all. WebOS, however, was a different matter. Whitman’s dragged her feet making a call about the black sheep operating system, leading to intense speculation. Will she sell WebOS? Kill it? Keep it? Turns out the answer as D) None of the above. Today, HP announced that WebOS is going open source.
Did you miss out on the HP TouchPad fire sale earlier this year? Well, buck up then. HP is telling employees that the last round of refurbished TouchPads will be going on sale on the HP eBay store at the fabled $99 price point. The trigger will be pulled at 6:00PM Central time on December 11th.Connect with MaximumPC
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