Hewlett-Packard's decision to kill the TouchPad and its webOS device business was one of the biggest flops of 2011. However, was it inevitable? According to a report in the New York Times, which partly relies on unnamed sources, former webOS and Palm employees said it likely was. Even though webOS has often been praised as a platform, the report indicates that there was never the right leadership or right engineers to make webOS products work, especially after HP bought Palm for $1.2 billion in 2010. Setbacks in building webOS applications, drawing in developers, an exodus of talent after HP bought Palm and other hitches likely doomed the TouchPad, which was pulled from the market weeks after its debut. HP has since made webOS an open source project. Article