The company has said it was looking into retaining webOS software and licensing it to third parties. If HP wanted webOS to be a third-party platform, they could've done it some time ago. But very few device makers want to license it, Kay said, adding that it stands little chance against other mobile platforms such as Apple's iOS and Google's Android.

"Nobody wants to license that thing. If they don't build their own hardware and can't license it, they bought Palm for nothing," Kay said.

Moving forward, HP has some other options, including "a long-shot possibility to become a leader in enterprise cloud as an anchor of a larger ecosystem of products and services," said Forrester Research analyst Frank Gillett in a statement. "They could buy Amdocs for enhanced billing and monitoring; but buying SAP still doesn't make sense."

But there could be fallout for HP's board due to Apotheker's "sudden removal," Bernstein Research wrote in an analyst note released before HP made the announcement.

"The potential sudden removal of Apotheker as CEO -- and the fact that such Board discussions were once again leaked to the press -- are likely to further undermine the Board's already fragile credibility," the note states. "Our conversations with major shareholders also indicate that they have been disgruntled with the Board, given it has made and approved a series of decisions (Hurd's firing; Leo's hiring; approval of the Autonomy acquisition; the premature announcement of the exit of the PC business) that many shareholders believe were poor decisions and misaligned with their interests."