So apparently newish HP CEO Meg Whitman has held an all-hands-on-deck meeting to discuss the fate of webOS, which is exactly the kind of meeting you have when your ship is sinking. The verdict, according to The Verge: uh, give us a few weeks. Perfect.
That's right; the fate of webOS apparently remains undecided, which makes one question the need for a late-night, super-stealth meeting in the first place. But! Apparently Whitman told the gathering of her Palm and HP minions that she wanted to "make the right decision, not the fast decision." She added that the lack of a final decision about WebOS can be "unsatisfying." She also told the assembled employees that she hasn't made a decision yet because she has yet to decide what to do with the PC business and how to manage the Autonomy aquisition. The bad news for the webOS workers: they still have no idea what, if anything, is going to become of their livelihoods. The good news: for now, at least they have one.
Well, some of them do, anyway; HP already cut 500 employees from its webOS division in September. The remaining lot have had to work through rumors of an HTC acquisition, an Amazon acquisition, rumors of shuttering, rumors of unnamed suitors, and the more grim prospect that everything they've devoted their professional lives to may disappear altogether.
So now that we know that the webOS question remains unresolved, we move onto the next big one: why have this meeting at all? Why dangle the prospect of some sort of resolution if there's none yet to be had? A stay of execution doesn't boost morale; it just makes people even more anxious about when the axe is going to fall.
Update: Apparently the reason for the delay is that Whitman still hasn't decided what to do with its recently salvaged PC division. Although it does seem that if anything has a future, it's tablets; phones "get more complicated," which means bye-bye Pre. Confusion abounds! Meg, please, at least let me know you've got a crystal clear vision for the future of printers-with-apps. [The Verge]