After HP and MS, LG pulls the plug on the GW990

After being showcased at the CES in Las Vegas, and making a second appearance at the MWC in Barcelona, LG has now decided to pull the plug on the GW990 smartphone.

Last Friday was a pretty grim day for the technology sector. After Intel and HP both shelved their major tablet PC projects, LG then announced it would be scrapping the GW990.


Just a demonstration

The official line is simple, and echoes Microsoft's statement about the Courier tablet, i.e. it was only ever a prototype to prove what we're capable of, and it's a product that's not intended for the consumer market. Strange—I don't remember LG mentioning that back in Barcelona ...

The GW 990 was a high-end smartphone with a large 4.7-inch screen. It was set to run on MeeGo, a new operating system fusing elements of Intel's Moblin and Nokia's Maemo Linux-based mobile operating systems.

LG's future in the mobile market

So what now for LG mobiles? Although the brand did develop an interesting cloud-based mobile phone, the Mini GD 880, LG isn't the most innovative manufacturer out there right now.

Plus, the brand has chosen to cancel the GW990 at a time when the smartphone market is booming. In the first quarter of 2010, for example, BlackBerry manufacturer RIM became one the world's top five mobile manufacturers for the first time ever, knocking out Motorola. In fact, RIM now occupies fourth place, just ahead of Sony-Ericsson, even though its product range consists exclusively of smartphones.

Over at LG, however, the smartphone department is looking somewhat bare ...



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