Big Chunk of HP’s webOS Enyo Team Heads for Google

Big Chunk of HP’s webOS Enyo Team Heads for Google

Between the failure of Palm’s webOS platform after HP took over and that company’s ongoing financial headaches, the news that most of the remaining development team for the open-source Enyo framework is heading for the exits should be little surprise.

The Verge is reporting that Google has snapped up a large portion of HP’s Enyo development team, the folks responsible for keeping an open-source version of the HTML5-based webOS platform alive and well.

While it’s unknown what project leader Matt McNulty and his merry band of webOS misfits will be doing at Google, they’ve actually got plenty to choose from, given the search giant controls both Android as well as the stagnating Chrome OS, which isn’t so far removed from Enyo in the first place.

So what happens now with HP’s open-source plans for webOS? The official statement from the company seems to indicate business as usual.

“We're pleased with the traction Enyo has gained to date and plan to continue its development along with the open source community,” HP told The Verge. “The Open webOS project is on schedule and we remain committed to the roadmap announced in January.”

webOS made its debut with the Palm Pre, a critical darling that failed to gain much traction against the iPhone and an onslaught of Android smartphones. Palm eventually threw in the towel and sold its assets to HP, who yanked the initial webOS products almost immediately, including the HP TouchPad tablet.

Not so coincidentally, Android’s current chief of design, Mattias Duarte, previously headed up Palm’s webOS division prior to launching the Pre -- so he’s probably got a pretty good idea of how he might utilize the talent now that Google has snatched them up.

Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter

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