It's important to remember that there was some significant change in leadership during this sequence of events. Mark Hurd was CEO of HP at the time they bought

It's important to remember that there was some significant change in leadership during this sequence of events. Mark Hurd was CEO of HP at the time they bought Palm. The current CEO, Leo Apotheker, wasn't all that crazy about the product, and from what I've read in other places, was looking for a reason to can it. IMO, webOS devices didn't get a fair shot at HP. I believe that in hindsight, webOS will go down in history as one of those great operating systems that died for reasons not related to it's quality as an OS. You also have to consider that making $1.2bn back on the Palm purchase wouldn't be all that difficult right now. HP has the straight forward option of simply selling the Palm patent portfolio of 1,600 patents from a company that was in the handheld device space long before most of the current players.