The outspoken founder of Voodoo PC and current CTO of HP's gaming business, Rahul Sood, has been causing a minor frenzy this week by talking about webOS. Clarifying the matter on his blog, Sood told concerned Palm-fans that a whole portfolio of portable products would be released over the next year, including some in exciting new form factors.
The mild-hysteria started from a twitter post responding to questions about when upcoming devices based on Palm's operating system would be revealed. Sood tweeted "... don't expect anything soon, please stop asking "when" --- i'd rather be straight with you. these things take time...". However, this was taken out of context and caused consternation among the webOS faithful.
In response, the CTO attempted to explain the matter by posting on his blog that "you will certainly see products released over the next 12 months, some sooner than others, and some which are very exciting to me", adding that "the stuff that excites me the most are the new form factors".
He continued, "now, when I said "over the next 12 months," I really mean over the next 12 months. Not at the end of 12 months, not tomorrow...but over the next 12 months we will see the makings of a new portfolio and the beginning of something great".
Sood is apparently working with the recently acquired Palm business-unit to try and find ways in which he can apply his expertise in the gaming business and in product planning.
Thanks to Sood's comments, it's now clearer than ever that HP has big plans for portable devices outside of the Windows and Android ecosystems.
