The tech world was rocked earlier this week when Google announced its purchase of Motorola Mobility, but that was nothing compared with the bombshell HP dropped today. HP announced in one fell swoop that it is abandoning both the PC and mobile device markets. PCs will live on, but the demise of WebOS eliminates what should have been a major player in the mobile field.

Not quite seven weeks ago HP launched the WebOS-based TouchPad tablet with great fanfare and high hopes. It was immediately hit with customer backlash over poor performance, and received tepid reviews. HP cut the price three or four times in the course of a week and still couldn’t drive demand, leading Best Buy to complain about being stuck with hundreds of thousands of unsold TouchPads and demanding that HP buy them back.