The technology headlines for the past 24 hours have been dominated by an unlikely source: Hewlett Packard's underperforming mobile software platform, webOS. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, we didn't really learn much.

The media frenzy began yesterday when Reuters reported that HP was mulling over the idea of unloading the old Palm mobile OS. Lending further credence to the report was the fact that HP has apparently enlisted the help of Bank of America to develop a strategy for the future of webOS.

Citing one source, Reuters reported that Oracle may be one of the likely webOS suitors, and Amazon, IBM, Intel (News - Alert) and RIM may not be far behind.

Things picked up yesterday afternoon when sources told The Verge that HP was planning "an all-hands meeting" on Tuesday evening to discuss the fate of the floundering operating system, which still holds significant value on the market even though HP hasn't done very much with it (see the TouchPad tablet flop).

So what blockbuster announcement did new CEO Meg Whitman make last night? She reportedly told HP employees that the company is employing a wait-and-see approach, and won't make a decision on the future of webOS for the next three to four weeks. Well that's no fun.

"It's really important to me to make the right decision, not the fast decision," Verge sources quoted her as saying. "If HP decides [to keep webOS], we're going to do it in a very significant way over a multi-year period. It's a very expensive proposition, but HP can make that bet."

Whitman added that the reason for the delay is basically because she has other priorities to attend to first, including the fate of HP's hardware business (which she decided not to shutter) and how best to integrate Autonomy (News - Alert), the software company HP acquired for $10 billion under the previous regime.

Understandably, Whitman has a lot on her plate, but she better make a decision on webOS soon, before time erodes even more value from the operating system. It is widely speculated that if HP decided to sell webOS, it would receive well less than the $1.2 billion that it paid for it just last year.

Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Rich Steeves