HP Considers Selling webOS

HP Considers Selling webOS

HP bought Palm -- which was struggling to keep its head above water -- as a way to get into the extremely competitive mobile arena. Unfortunately things didn't quite work out, and we could only speculate if it was because of destructive board intervention, or not enough support for its mobile team.

But what we do know now, courtesy of Reuters who broke this exclusive story, is that HP is looking to sell Palm's webOS mobile software platform. According to Reuters, the deal could bring in a few hundred million, which of course wouldn't give HP back its US$1.2 billion.

Reuters also named a few interested parties like Amazon, RIM, IBM, Oracle and Intel. However HP's new CEO, Meg Whitman, also said that if HP doesn't sell Palm, it will return to the market with much better webOS devices than the last round.

"The question now before us is what do we do with webOS software and do we come back to market with webOS devices," Whitman said. "It obviously will not be the same device but it will be version 2.0."

Of course there could be a chance that the companies looking to acquire Palm are looking squarely at Palm's wealth of patents, and those could be very useful indeed.

To read more, click here (Source: Reuters)