H.P.’s TouchPad, Some Say, Was Built on Flawed Software - NYTimes.com

Excerpt from a Palm post mortem

WebOS turned out to be something of a toxic asset. Several former Palm and H.P. employees involved in WebOS say that there was little hope for the software from the beginning, because the way it was built was so deeply flawed.

“Palm was ahead of its time in trying to build a phone software platform using Web technology, and we just weren’t able to execute such an ambitious and breakthrough design,” said Paul Mercer, former senior director of software at Palm, who oversaw the interface design of WebOS and recruited crucial members of the team. “Perhaps it never could have been executed because the technology wasn’t there yet.”

H.P.’s TouchPad, Some Say, Was Built on Flawed Software - NYTimes.com