The decision announced by HP last December 9 is clearly the best choice that they did and could later affect the future of the company.
Hewlett-Packard has decided to release its latest webOS-device opearting system to the public. This means that HP is releasing it as an open source project. This will enable developers, HP or non-HP, the ability to enhance or improve the product.
HP estimates that giving the community the ability to tweak their webOS will elt them save money since it has been becoming a money-losing project in HP.
Whether the webOS becomes another division within HP or a different independent identity is another question. HP hasn’t defined where webOS stands. What HP says is that “the goal of the project is to accelerate the open development of the webOS platform” and that “ HP will be an active participant and investor in the project.”
But what HP gets from this is that they will be enabling their company to save money. By making the webOS status as nonprofit, they will be getting tax breaks. The ball is now on their legal team’s court should they decide to have a one time spinoff write off or a continuing in-house write off.
Photo credit: blog.laptopmag.com
