After Palm’s acquisition by HP, and a revamp of the hardware, HP still failed to make an impact with great hardware.

With its TouchPad experiencing decline in sales, HP figured that open sourcing was the only option left before closing up shop in webOS altogether. By open sourcing, HP is giving way to leading phone manufacturers, such as HTC and Samsung to use the software on better hardware.

“webOS is the only platform designed from the ground up to be mobile, cloud-connected and scalable,” said Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer. “By contributing this innovation, HP unleashes the creativity of the open source community to advance a new generation of applications and devices.”

HP will make the underlying code of webOS available under an open source license. Developers, partners, HP engineers and other hardware manufacturers can deliver ongoing enhancements and new versions into the marketplace.”

After an Apple like approach to the in house development of software and hardware HP has given up and is discontinuing its mobile hardware effort. However, according to a report from ZDNet, the open sourcing of webOS could lead to competition against Google’s Android, which is currently open sourced and is available on a number of phones. This could also pose as competition to iOS, by taking on a similar strategy to Android.

webOS could potentially sell more of its software on more smartphones, and possibly outsell Apple’s iPhone shipments. Apple continues to lead the manufacturing side of the market, but ultimately is behind on the number of smartphones with iOS. HP CEO Meg Whitman, in an interview with The Verge, revealed details about the open sourcing of webOS and also mentions that HP is still planning to use webOS on future tablet products, indicating the company is not abandoning mobile hardware entirely.

Will HP be creating any new webOS hardware?

Meg: The answer to that is yes but what I can’t tell you is whether that will be in 2012 or not. But we will use webOS in new hardware, but it’s just going to take us a little longer to reorganize the team in a quite different direction than we’ve been taking it in the past.

Are we talking printers? Or tablets and phones?

Meg: In the near term what I would imagine — and this could change, in full disclosure — is I would think tablets, I do not believe we will be in the smartphone business again.

The Courier is not real. And it never will be. It was a moment for me personally similar to the one when I learned in the game Portal that “The Cake is a Lie”!

If you remember a while back many of us were excited by User Interface concept videos for the Courier Tablet, and what was supposed to be Microsoft’s unique take on that category of device.

Engadget followed up on those initial videos a few weeks later and confirmed that the device was real, and proceeded to flesh the story out for us all with more details, which hinted very strongly at a real device in the pipeline.

We reported on that here: [touchreviews]

And I had this to say at the time :

If, and this is a big if. But if Microsoft can produce this device so that it looks as good as the pictures we have seen to date. And if the User Interface has the functionality detailed in those concept videos, then the Courier is going to be truly remarkable. And I will camp outside a store or travel half way round the world to buy one on day one. And I’ll want to develop for it too.

I am not convinced that this device will be all that the videos and pictures promise. It just seems too good to be true. But if it is then I think we could see a massive shift in power in the mobile market place.

Well it was “too good to be true”. In fact it’s worse that that.. Microsoft had this to say today :

At any given time, across any of our business groups, there are new ideas being investigated, tested, and incubated. It’s in Microsoft’s DNA to continually develop and incubate new technologies to foster productivity and creativity. The ‘Courier’ project is an example of this type of effort and its technologies will be evaluated for use in future Microsoft offerings, but we have no plans to build such a device at this time.

So that’s it. Probably the best looking stab that any manufacturer has taken at a tablet to date is not going to happen. Perhaps the Courier was not the most well thought out device in its physical form overall. But in its User Interface and conceptual design it was groundbreaking in many ways, and any possible issues it may have had with folding I am sure could have been worked out. Especially if its size was to be around that which Engadget predicted.

HP also cancelled their Windows 7 tablet yesterday after having purchased Palm and webOS.

So with HP grabbing Palm, perhaps recognising where webOS might take them in the tablet arena, and then clearly deciding they need to play catchup to Apple, who are apparently years ahead of everyone else with the iPad. Microsoft have cancelled their remaining tablet project a day after HP killed their only other upcoming Tablet product of any import. A Tablet that Steve Ballmer proudly announced on stage at CES earlier this year.

I have to wonder who makes the important decision at Microsoft these days!

Are you disappointed that Microsoft will not make the Courier? Let us know in the comments.