HP to soon have new WebOS partners?

Both Leo Apotheker and Jon Rubinstein, ex-CEO of Palm spoke about this at the beginning of the month: WebOS could also be seen on devices other than HP.

HP is betting big on WebOS to develop their mobile strategy, with it now possible to find the platform initially developed by Palm in tablets (HP TouchPad), Smartphones (HP Pré 3, HP Veer...) and as a Windows layer on computers.

But the expansion of WebOS doesn’t end here as the group’s management has now confirmed that the mobile OS could also be made available to other manufacturers. CEO of HP Leo Apotheker indicated during an interview that he was currently in discussions to offer WebOS licenses to other companies.


Competing with Android?
HP wants to provide an alternative operating system to the all-conquering Google Android, Microsoft Windows products and even potential competitors like Apple’s iOS. Bloomberg has added that Web OS licenses could also be offered to help reinforce the Software division at this time as general public PC sales have seen a downturn.

Apotheker didn’t want to elaborate on a calendar for this widened deployment of WebOS though, stating that "there is no date limit for it to be done by". According to Bloomberg, Samsung has been approached by HP to potentially use WebOS in their handsets, following the manufacturer’s agnostic views of platforms despite their strong support of Android and the development of their own Bada OS mobile platform.

The South Korean manufacturer could also have some decisions about Android forced upon them, like it being impossible to change the interface which reduces the company’s possibilities of differentiating themselves from competing products, which is currently what is happening with Android Honeycomb.