HP PC Boss: Shutting down of WebOS is “unfounded rumor”

The head of HP’s PC division Todd Bradley called a report yesterday that HP has decided to shut down its WebOS devision an “unfounded rumor.”

Bradley, appearing in a Bloomberg West interview last night, said that contrary to the rumors published yesterday by the Guardian, HP had not yet made up its mind, and that it will weigh all the “data and information” before making “the right decision.”

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Still, the statements leave WebOS dangerously in limbo, and that’s likely to discourage employees of the WebOS unit at a time when some high-ranking HP employees have already started leaving the company. WebOS, a slick mobile operating system, developed by smartphone maker Palm before it was acquired by HP, had received wide accolades. But it was hobbled by the fumbling of its owners, first Palm, and then HP — who did too little, too late to encourage developers to make applications for it. Meanwhile, HP looks set to throw its PC and device future to Microsoft’s mobile OS.