HP hires MeeGo chief to develop consumer tablets

There’s clearly a leak at HP, with another internal memo hitting the wires on Tuesday morning, revealing the company’s plans to resurrect its interest in the mobility space. The memo outlines the creation of HP Mobility, a business unit that will focus on the creation of “consumer tablets”.

The move comes almost 12 months after the death of the TouchPad and follows the ill fortunes of webOS, which was recently revealed to have been spun out into another HP entity called Gram.

It’s not clear how HP Mobility and Gram will fit together as there could be significant overlap in the focus of the two units. It’s been suggested however that Mobility’s remit may go beyond webOS and could even include the development of hardware, something ex-CEO Leo Apotheker put a stop to at the end of his tenure.

To lead the Mobility unit, HP has hired someone who is no stranger to looking after unloved platforms – Alberto Torres, who most recently oversaw the MeeGo products and platform at Nokia. Torres starts in September.

In July a group of Torres’ former colleagues at Nokia made their own bid to sustain the MeeGo platform, launching a start-up called Jolla.

“Nokia created something wonderful – the world’s best smartphone product. It deserves to be continued, and we will do that together with all the bright and gifted people contributing to the MeeGo success story,” the start-up wrote in a statement on its LinkedIn page.