From Smartphones to Smart TVs: LG Buys webOS from HP

Some may remember a certain report we made last year, about LG, Smart TVs, webOS and the Google TV service. Now we have stumbled upon the closest thing to a confirmation for it.

Back when Palm still existed, webOS was its wonder child, an operating system that could have rivaled iOS, Android and BlackBerry.

Sadly, the company failed mostly due to, arguably, unfortunate marketing tactics, leading to its buyout by HP.

Then HP had some trouble in late 2011 and ended up scrapping all plans to turn webOS into a tablet operating system.

2012 passed with barely anything new happening, besides the making of some of the OS open source.

Now, though, whatever reason HP had to cling to the operating system in the hopes of one day resurrecting it are no longer.

Either that, or HP decided it would be much more profitable to sell off all assets related to it, which is what will supposedly happen.

CNET made a report to this effect, though it has since been taken down for some reason. A Google Cache version can still be found here though.

LG will buy it, though not for use in phones. Instead, the corporation will adapt the software for its Smart TVs.

“It creates a new path for LG to offer an intuitive user experience and Internet services across a range of consumer electronics devices,” Skott Ahn, LG's president and chief technology officer, allegedly stated.

The webOS team will set up shop in the LG facilities in Silicon Valley. Most will be new or reassigned employees, and they will have their work cut out for them since most of the original webOS staff have long since left HP (and, thus, are unavailable to LG). Whether or not the software does better, from a marketing standpoint, than Google TV remains to be seen.