On the same day HP announced it would open source webOS, its CEO Meg Whitman told new outlets HP will re-enter the tablet market soon. HP will put out a Windows 8 tablet sometime in 2012, but there was also talk of creating another webOS tablet.

After several weeks of uncertainty, HP finally announced what it’s planning to do with webOS. As you may recall, former HP CEO Leo Apotheker was the person in charge when HP initially killed webOS hardware. It took HP’s new CEO Meg Whitman to make the ultimate decision on the operating system’s fate. Her decision is a mixed bag. webOS will still be around, but HP is making the software open source. At the same time, HP still has no immediate plans to create webOS-powered smartphones.

HP announced on Thursday it will not spin off its PC business. This option was placed on the table by former HP CEO Léo Apotheker. Apotheker also ushered in the death of webOS hardware and intended to move HP away from the traditional consumer market it had been known for, and further into the enterprise and services markets.

Ever since HP announced it was done with webOS on mobile devices, it was only a matter of time before Palm employees started to get let go. It appears HP has no real use for Palm anymore and is interested in selling the Palm division sooner rather than later. This is according to sources who tipped off VentureBeat. The sources are also saying Amazon is in the running to acquire Palm. Not only that, but Amazon is reportedly the leading candidate at the moment.

While the chances of regular consumers being able to purchase an HP TouchPad from retail is quite slim, HP employees will be able to grab the tablet very soon. According to an internal email, HP employees will be able to purchase TouchPads on the morning of September 28 online. HP is describing this as a “one last chance” opportunity before the well dries up.

HP’s grand decisions of late has landed it a class action lawsuit. The suit is being led by HP shareholder Richard Gammel who accuses HP’s executives of leading investors to believe the company was confident in its business decisions more than it actually was. As a result, Gammel claims HP’s stock was wrongfully inflated. Gammel is seeking an untold amount for anyone who purchased shares in HP between November 22, 2010 and August 18, 2011.

Samsung just can’t seem to break away from rumors regarding HP. First, Samsung was rumored to be interested in purchasing HP’s PC business. Samsung responded by saying those rumors were false. Next, Samsung was believed to be eyeballing a webOS acquisition. As fate would have it, Samsung doesn’t want that either.

The most appropriate way to describe the HP TouchPad right now is to call it a tablet on life support. HP may have declared the end to the TouchPad, but it won’t stop supporting webOS until fourth quarter of this year. Until then, some TouchPad apps are still getting updates. HP will also push out an over-the-air update sometime in the future.

The relationship between Samsung and HP has taken another turn. When HP announced that it was looking to either spin-off or sell its PC division, Samsung was rumored as being a potential buyer. Samsung later said those rumors weren’t true. Today, the Digitimes reports Samsung is thinking about taking webOS off HP’s hands.

Less than a week ago, HP shocked all of us by announcing that there would be no more webOS devices. That announcement ushered in the death of the HP TouchPad and the Pre 3 almost immediately. This led many of us to believe that HP was going back on its word of delivering webOS to other devices such as Windows PCs and printers. Despite the cloudy future of webOS, HP is still saying it will use webOS in the future.