Now that Samsung has denied that they are eying webOS as a potential platform for its mobile devices, HTC could end up being the one to purchase Palm’s former OS to compete against Apple’s iOS.
Not only would HTC buying webOS make sense financially, but it would also position HTC in a unique position to combat the growth of iOS in the mobile market.
Cher Wang, chairwoman of HTC, told Focus Taiwan that the company is internally considering the purchase of HP’s orphaned OS. HP killed the TouchPad and its other Palm-branded smartphones running webOS recently, and the status of webOS has been put on an indefinite standby until HP can get itself together.
HTC has always been a smartphone maker that differentiates itself from the competition, despite the fact that its devices run on Android and Windows Phone 7. HTC’s ‘Sense’ interface looks nice, and the company has always made top notch hardware.
Due to Android licensing arrangements, HTC has to pay Microsoft a percentage of every smartphone sold. If HP were to buy webOS and abandon Android, no extra licensing would be required.
Google recently bought Motorola for $12.5 billion, so that’s one less smartphone maker off the board. It’s coming down to Apple, Samsung, Google and HTC.
HTC and Apple are in the middle of a complicated, heated patent lawsuit, and Apple is being accused of copying nine HTC patents in the iPhone. Apple also has its own ‘copycat’ infringement lawsuit filed against HTC. The two are definitely at odds.
What better way for HTC to retaliate against Apple’s lawsuits then to buy what many consider the most well designed mobile OS available on the market? Samsung may not let HTC that close to webOS, but HTC could pull a surprise move and come out swinging on all fronts.
Is webOS the competition that iOS needs? If paired with HTC hardware, there’s no telling what kind of dent webOS could put in the market.
(via AppleInsider)
Alex Heath is a journalist who works for Tech Insider. He’s the former co-host of The CultCast. He has been quoted by the likes of the BBC, KRON 4 News, and books like “ICONIC: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation.” He lives in Lexington, Kentucky. If you want to pitch a story, share a tip, or just get in touch, additional contact information is available on his personal site. Follow him on Twitter.
28 responses to “Will HTC Be the One to Buy webOS in a Move Against Apple?”
At ‘adds’?
Anyway it’s a nice thought for HTC, but do they have the infrastructure to support an OS fully. It’s one thing to skin a phone, and a completely different thing to support a whole ecosystem. Nokia for example hasn’t been able to do it
Misspelling first sentence. “areeying” should probably be “are buying”
Do you mean Google instead of Microsoft?
“Due to Android licensing arrangements, HTC has to pay Microsoft a percentage of every smartphone sold.”
I think that WebOS is cursed…..
nope, it’s Microsoft, it’s some patent settlement from some time back.
This makes a lot of sense – it would differentiates HTC’s phones from other Android phones, and HTC arguably have the ability to actually make the most of the platform. I’m sure that a couple of decades of licenses for the palm patents won’t hurt them either.
I hope they do. I love WebOS But by them doing that means that they wont be too focused on Android too much. Phones will still come out with that OS but it wont be at the rate its currently at. But if done right I really do believe that WebOS could gain alot of market share possibly knocking IOS or even android down some. Because when the average person thinks of android they mostly think of Moto and HTC because of their key devices that have already came out.
Htc is suing apple for 9 patents? I thought it was the other way around? How can htc sue apple over patents when the iPhone was the first multi touch phone ever created?
oh please, get over this “everyone vs. Apple” knee-jerk fixation. HTC would buy WebOS as a hedge against Google/Motorola. because right now it is too dependent on Android, and it knows it. only an idiot would trust Google. none of the OEM’s do anymore, no matter their PR BS. every major OEM has to have its own in-house OS now. it might just be a “fork” of Android, like Amazon is doing, but they need one whatever it is. they are all looking at WebOS as one possibility. and HP may license it to several rather than sell outright to just one to take advantage of this.
we’ll see.
a highly fragmented mobile os market only increases iphone’s dominance.
why can’t asia innovate instead of imitate?
HTC would do well from this but Amazon would do better.
“Cher Wang, chairwoman of HTC, told Focus Taiwan that the company is internally considering the purchase of HP’s orphaned OS.”
Em.. no she didn’t. That’s straight fiction. She mentioned that they had discussed internally buying an OS but nowhere in the interview is WebOS mentioned. The Focus Taiwan article simply references the original article with a different paper.
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