Amazon Reportedly Negotiating for webOS
October 3, 2011
Amazon is in serious talks with HP about buying webOS according to VentureBeat, which claims to know from a well-placed source at HP, known for leaking like a sieve.
HP got the mobile operating system as part of its $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm last year, stuck it in a TouchPad tablet, tried selling the thing for six weeks, abandoned it in mid-August, and now reportedly wants to dump Palm ASAP. HP initially suggested it would sell or license the platform…
There are supposed to be other interested parties but Amazon is described as the most advanced. Handily ex-Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein is on the Amazon board.
Amazon made the Android 2.3 operating system underlying its days-old Fire tablet look very un-Android; the multi-tasking webOS could be presumably even more differentiated, and Amazon could also presumably avoid the litigation the lawsuit-prone Android has attracted. Actually, the New York Times suggests Amazon may want Palm for its patents.
It’s also suggested that Amazon may want the mobile bill-paying near-field-communication technology (NFC) HP was supposedly developing for webOS.
HP is expected to take a billion-dollar write-off on Palm and webOS this fiscal quarter.