webOS 2.0 This Year, Palm to Be a Sub-Brand, HP Says

According to HP's Jon Rubinstein, the company is determined to bring a major webOS release to the market before the end of the ongoing year. We're referring here to webOS 2.0, which should arrive in less than five months from now, at least this is what the former Palm CEO stated in a recent interview with Fortune.

The leading mobile phone maker was acquired recently by HP, something that resulted in the availability of more resources for the development of webOS, that's for sure. Undoubtedly, Palm did managed to deliver a series of new versions of its operating system since about a year ago, when they launched the Palm Pre, but no major release emerged until now.

According to a recent article on Engadget, chances are that the new OS flavor would be accompanied by some impressive HP devices, ranging from smartphones to tablet PCs (though the leading computer maker said previously that it is not interested in the mobile phone market). Rubinstein did say previously that they are focused on the release of new handsets too, and the following few months might bring to the display some new devices for enthusiasts.

One thing that remains to be seen what branding the upcoming devices would sport. According to HP CEO Mark Hurd, we shouldn't be surprised if we see the Palm brand “moving into the background” and becoming nothing more than a “sub-brand.” In other words, we might very well expect for the future webOS based smartphones, or other devices, to come without the Palm branding.

For what it's worth, such a move was somehow expected ever since HP announced the acquisition of Palm. The company said at the time that it bought the phone maker for the webOS platform and that it plans on using the software on a wide range of devices, something that suggested we might see the Palm name disappearing from the landscape.

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