In the company's earnings call today, HP CEO Leo Apotheker just announced that its shutdown of the webOS hardware business -- covering the Veer, TouchPad, and Pre series -- will wind down in the fourth quarter of the year. He didn't specify on the call whether he meant calendar Q4 or fiscal Q4, which makes a bit of a difference: fiscal Q4 would end next month, whereas calendar Q4 ends in over four. He also hasn't said whether this'll allow for full-fledged launches (or launches, period) of the Pre 3 in the US along with the TouchPad 4G and TouchPad Go -- but the fourth quarter of the calendar year kicks off in just a few weeks, so it wouldn't seem likely that those products would get much momentum in retail channels before the plug gets pulled.

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