The latest news in the webOS saga is that HTC is interested in buying a mobile OS, which could possibly lead to a webOS purchase. But this was rumored immediately, when HP announced that they were going to discontinue making webOS hardware. Both HTC and Samsung were the front-runners in this rumored buyout.
When Google announced their plans to buy Motorola Mobility, this lead to speculation that Google’s other Android partners, while outwardly supportive of the plans, were furious behind the scenes. With this new Google-rola entity, Google would now directly compete with their other manufacturing partners.The prevailing theory was that manufacturers like HTC and Samsung would be more amenable to buying their own mobile OS to balance out this new close partnership between Google and Motorola Mobility. But at IFA 2011 Samsung said outright that they weren’t interested in buying webOS, so that leaves HTC.
Before announcing that they’re getting out of the mobile device (and PC) business, HP said that they’d be open to licensing webOS. However, at the time (around the end of last June) they insisted that whoever licenses the OS have be willing to focus primarily on webOS, not only making devices to run it, but also work on improvements and developing new features for webOS. It sounded like they wanted a sort of exclusive partnership, similar to what Microsoft and Nokia have for Windows Phone.
But that was then, and this is now. HP has kept webOS so that they can get as much value out of their remaining investment as they can. This normally means licensing, or more likely sale to another manufacturer. Enter HTC. Again, this has been a long-standing rumor, so I don’t know that HTC expressing more interest in buying a mobile OS is any kind of smoking gun pointing to a webOS purchase, but it’s one that the webOS community is hopeful about. HTC has a lot of really great phones. Love it or hate it, HTC Sense UI is an interesting and functional skin on top of Android. And as HTC’s chairperson, Cher Wang, has said,
“We can use any OS we want. We are able to make things different from our rivals on the second or third layer of a platform. Our strength lies in understanding an OS, but it does not mean that we have to produce an OS.”
So HTC doesn’t necessarily need to own an OS to be great, but it sure would give them an out if the Google-rola combo becomes too much of a competitor for Google’s Android partners to deal with.
HTC’s logo says that HTC is “quietly brilliant”. Many in the tech arena agree that webOS is the best mobile OS that never got enough traction. That sounds “quietly brilliant” to me. Perhaps webOS has finally found its true match.
Via Android and Me
