Ex-HP WebOS Developer Chief Kerris Lands At Nokia

Nokia couldn't be reached for confirmation, but Marco Argenti, Nokia's senior vice president of developer and marketplace, welcomed Kerris to his team in a Thursday tweet.

"Great people are what makes the difference, always. I'm excited to welcome Richard Kerris in my team as Global Head of Developer Relations," Argenti tweeted.

WebOS Roundup reported Kerris' move to Nokia on Thursday and his departure from HP on Monday.

Kerris, who was CTO at Lucasfilm prior to joining HP in January, had a front row seat to the rise and fall of the HP TouchPad. In June, Kerris told the Apple enthusiast blog The Loop that HP had no intention of competing with the iPad in the consumer space.

"We think there’s a better opportunity for us to go after the enterprise space and those consumers that use PCs," Kerris told The Loop. "This market is in its infancy and there is plenty of room for both of us to grow."

HP killed the TouchPad in August less than six weeks after launching it, although the device has remained in high demand due to HP's decision to sell off remaining inventory of 16GB models in a $99 fire sale.

In September, HP moved WebOS software engineering, developer relations and software product marketing teams into its Office of Strategy and Technology division (OS&T). In that move, Kerris and Ari Jaaksi, senior vice president in charge of WebOS software engineering, began reporting to Shane Robison, executive vice president and chief strategy and technology officer. But Robison, an 11-year veteran, is leaving HP at the end of the month.

Meanwhile, HP says it hasn't yet decided the fate of WebOS. In Thursday's conference call with analysts to announce HP's decision to keep the Personal Systems Group, Todd Bradley, PSG executive vice president, said he and CEO Meg Whitman are working "as quickly as we can to make the right decision about WebOS."

Whitman said HP will make a long term decision on WebOS "over the next couple of months", She also noted that HP is looking at ways to use WebOS in other parts of the company.

"WebOS has obvious use in the PSG business, but also in other businesses we have, and so we have to make a more holistic decision on WebOS," she said.