HP Vows to Use Palm’s WebOS on Tablets, Printers

From X-bit Labs: Hewlett Packard plans to use Palm’s webOS and its possible derivatives for various kind of devices, not necessarily smartphones. The chief executive officer of HP claims that slates and web-connected printers are likely candidates for the webOS.

“We expect to leverage webOS and the apps store beyond smart phones into form-factors like slates and web-connected printers,” said Mark Hurd, chief executive officer of HP.

The head of one of the world’s largest information technologies companies did not reveal when HP plans to start offering slates or printers featuring the webOS, which the company acquired along with troubled smartphone designer Palm. However, Mr. Hurd noted that besides webOS, HP acquired a lot of intellectual property, which will eventually find its place in different products.

“It really has more to do with the intellectual property and in the fact that when you look across the HP ecosystem of interconnected devices, it is a large family of devices. When we think of printers, you have now got a whole series of web-connected printers that, as they connect to the web, need an OS. We prefer to have that OS to be our IP where we can control the customer experience as we have always done in the printing business,” said Mr. Hurd during the quarterly conference call with financial analysts.

Although HP is a big expert in software, it remains to be seen whether it can truly make webOS popular among end-users. The operating system was developed by Palm specifically for smartphones, but sales of appropriate devices were not a success for Palm. At present the webOS is naturally not tailored for anything, except smartphones, hence, the quality of user experience is questionable.

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