HP is finally pulling the plug on selling new units of its TouchPad tablet. Late on Friday, HP sent out emails to people (including folks at Neowin) who had signed up for updates about being able to receive the now discontinued webOS tablet. Unfortunately, those emails, as you can see above, stated that "we are officially out of stock."
This news is a direct contradiction from what HP said last August, when the company claimed it would "produce one last run of TouchPads to meet unfulfilled demand". While a few HP employees were apparently able to purchase a few final TouchPad units last September, it looks like the general public won"t get that chance after all.
It"s one of those "not with a bang but with a whimper" type of endings for the TouchPad, which no one wanted to buy when HP launched the tablet in July starting at $499. However when HP decided to cut production of the tablet in mid-August it also sold its remaining units for as low as $99. That caused a massive surge of interest in the TouchPad and may have inspired other tablet makers to lower the price of their products.
You can bet that HP, with a new leader and a new commitment to the PC platform, won"t make the same mistakes twice when it comes out with a new tablet product.