In recently slashing prices for its TouchPad by $100 and then later again lowered the price to $99 for 16 GB and $149 for 32 GB, HP brought new life to the dying tablet with a surge of sales. But days later, HP surprised the computer world with their announcement to discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones and dropping or spinning off their hardware business.

Now if you are confused about the future of HP’s WebOS, here’s the latest. HP will continue to sell and support TouchPad tablets built on webOS platform.  The company is also planning to bring the webOS platform to printer and PCs. HP’s webOS chief Stephen DeWitt told AllThingsD that HP will continue to invest in webOS even after it stops making devices out of it.

“Today we are the only ones making webOS devices,” said DeWitt. “What tomorrow will bring, that’s open to speculation.” As of now the webOS platform is on hold and there are external vendors that are interested in the software as DeWitt said. “We’ve had a number of discussions and there’s a lot of interest around webOS,” said DeWit.

DeWitt confirms that webOS is still not dead yet.  HP is evaluating whether to license webOS to various hardware manufacturers, partner with a single company or orbit rotation of webOS from phones and tablets to PCs and printers. “We are continuing with our webOS-on-Windows work,” DeWitt said. “We’ll announce exactly what the rollout is when we are ready to.”

WebOS based Veer smartphones and TouchPad tablets will continue to be sold in stores, and HP will continue to offer further updates for both devices and provide support.

After HP brought Palm and its webOS software solution, it planned to become the leading provider of tablet PCs, second only to Apple’s iPad. But now HP is looking for integration of webOS on a variety of connected devices, and would be leveraging the software in the entire device ecosystem of connected devices.  And if you go by a report from the U.S. Telecom Wired and Wireless Sizing, it might interest HP to broaden the software platform on a variety of connected devices.

According to the U.S. Telecom Wired and Wireless Sizing and Share 2011-2016 research by research firm ATLANTIC-ACM, there were 23.9 million connected devices in the M2M market in the first quarter of the year. The number is expected to grow to 82.5 million by 2016. The report was published on the latest edition of the telecom industry’s chief source of market share and sizing information study journal.

“While blockbuster M2M deals – like those with AT&T for Amazon’s Kindle or Verizon’s contract with General Motors’ OnStar, dominate headlines, there are thousands of opportunities for greenfield projects connecting a nearly limitless array of devices to networks,” said ATLANTIC-ACM analyst Douglas J. Barnett. “This broad range of opportunities will connect 82.5 million devices by 2016, generating $1.6 billion in revenues to wireless providers.”

There are certain questions that HP will still have to address in the coming weeks. Will they deliver webOS as part of connected devices to appliances and automobiles? Will they actually sell Palm’s patents?  HP had 37,000 patents and they have added 1500-4000 patents after Palm acquisition. It would be interesting to see if webOS would still be live on in all kinds of connected devices.