Palm and their tech child, WebOS, may finally come to an end today. Palm was always known for their game-changing smartphone operating system, including the early PalmOS that everybody saw on the Palm Treo handsets. WebOS was the next generation of PalmOS and had in many rights became a highly competitive OS. Many analyst agreed that WebOS was the smoothest, most revolutionary OS during its inception, but failed to keep up with the competition with lackluster hardware specs and a poor build quality. The emergence of the Android OS and consistency of iOS may have contributed to its potential demise. While the opportunity was clearly there to be the third contender in a heavily Android and iOS-biased phone market with the bowing out of Windows Mobile and the great decline of Blackberry and Nokia in the US, Palm and HP went the cheap route with their devices. The build quality didn’t match the quality and innovation of WebOS, advertising was light and didn’t catch the attention of those wavering Blackberry and Windows Mobile users enough. The appeal was all with Android and iOS. Android took over the world with its vast army of smartphones for any kind of person, comparable to the Droid armies in Star Wars, while iOS continued to improve its audience with its 1-device, Rambo-like tenacity.

WebOS definitely had the brains to survive the cold Android Christmases and the hot iPhone summers but apparently its mother, HP, and father, Palm, didn’t have the love or the heart to make it through. HP made Palm a division of HP, only to cancel the sales and production of the HP TouchPad and Pre3 altogether causing a fuss at the Best Buy offices nationwide. The ensuing (and coming) TouchPad firesale seemed to momentarily sooth the fiery mess that HP had caused, giving the opportunity for consumers to have one last wiff of what WebOS could have been.

Yes, this is the death note given to WebOS. I believe HP will make the decision to sell WebOS outright. Rumors say they will most likely license it to other phone companies but with a company as large and as arrogant as HP I foresee that they just want to move on with the show, heading back into the loving arms of Windows. Mark my words, today will be the planned burial of the beloved WebOS platform. Stayed tuned at Hot Tech Today for an update.