There are a few reasons why HP might want to make even more TouchPads to sell at a loss when they’re done getting rid of their inventory.
- There is something left to prove in HP. The decision to put WebOS to bed may not be as completely final as has been said. It could be resurrected or maybe spun off again into a new company. I don’t know why they’d want to do that since they can apparently only sell enough of the devices at a loss, but maybe they’ll think of something.
- They want to pump up WebOS’s chops for an acquisition. Samsung, their new Bada OS aside, has been reported as interested in WebOS, and maybe someone else is interested merely in standing out without having to spend the two to three years of downtime it’d take to make a new OS.
- They want to pump up WebOS’s chops for open source. This is the least likely. I could see some pieces going open source and I would be personally happy if the whole thing made it out alive, but I don’t see HP sinking that sum of money into something they’re going to divest themselves off when they’re trying to do it to grow their margins.