HP to use webOS on its own hardware

Apr 29, 2010 09:57 GMT  ·  By

Sunnyvale-based mobile phone maker Palm might disappear from the smartphone market, following the recently announced purchase. Although no specific details on the matter have been unveiled so far, HP might integrate the handset vendor in its global business, something that will result in the disappearance of the Palm branding from future devices.

When announcing that HP is set to purchase Palm for 1.2 billion, the computer maker also stated that the webOS should prove a great asset for the company's performance on the smartphone market. The current Palm roadmap is said to have remained untouched, but HP does plan the inclusion of webOS on its hardware, meaning that no further Palm devices will emerge on the market.

Palm has been through a rough period lately, which ended with its acquisition by HP. Early last year, following the first bad quarters the company had, Palm unveiled webOS, a new mobile platform currently powering two devices, the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi. Even if the OS is valuable and very appealing, sales have been disappointing, and Palm went from bad to worse, with rumors regarding a takeover emerging around the web for quite some time now.

When it comes to the HP-Palm deal, the main focus remains the webOS platform. HP is set to support the mobile operating system, and will throw in its financial resources, scale, and global presence to do so. The company will focus on the building of a robust development platform so that more software solutions for the OS will emerge, and will also increase the investment in both R&D and marketing/sales of webOS-based devices.

The two companies announced that John Rubinstein, current Palm CEO, as well as his team, will continue working on webOS. However, the mobile platform is expected to prove a key factor, the growth of HP's connected mobile ecosystem, and there will be a great focus on the creation of an HP experience. The HP devices to boast webOS should include both smartphones and tablets, it seems. No specific details on when webOS will be pre-loaded on computer maker's hardware were unveiled.

In the end, all the details provided by the two companies suggest that HP purchased Palm mainly for the webOS platform, and that it will focus on continuing its development. According to Engadget, Palm says that “that was the whole point.” While there are still a great deal of details on the merger to be set up, one thing that shapes up is that Palm has all chances to disappear as soon as the deal is closed, even if the pair hasn't commented yet on what will happen with the Palm branding.