The ghost of WebOS is still haunting HP.
The company today settled a longstanding lawsuit with its investors for $57 million, Reuters reports. The suit was initially filed after HP announced that it was dumping its Palm-powered mobile business in 2011, only a year after it acquired Palm.
Investors (mostly pension funds) claimed HP defrauded them with the sudden shift away from mobile. Prior to that announcement, HP used Palm’s WebOS operating system in its TouchPad tablet and also sold Palm’s Pre smartphones — none of which took off with consumers.
Getting out of mobile was just one of many shocking decisions by former HP CEO Leo Apotheker, who also got into hot water over his $11 billion acquisition of enterprise software company Autonomy. That deal ultimately resulted in an additional $8.8 billion charge for HP over serious accounting issues.
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HP sold off WebOS to LG last year, which ended up using the platform in its newest smart TVs. The company also sold Palm’s patent portfolio to Qualcomm earlier this year.
