To make sure that the entire industry is on the same page with Samsung, company CEO Choi Gee Sung clearly stated on Friday that Samsung will "never" license HP's webOS platform for smartphones and tablets. He made his anti-webOS stance during IFA in Berlin, Germany, noting that his South Korea-based company already has its own mobile OS.
"It’s not right that acquiring an operating system is becoming a fashion," Choi told reporters. He added that Samsung is currently working to boost Bada's software capabilities "harder than people outside think." Currently the in-house OS is slated to appear on the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Note and three additional Wave smartphones.
Based on Choi's comments, it appears that HP has one less prospect when it begins to properly shop webOS around to other manufacturers. Rumors of Samsung's possible interest in webOSsurfaced earlier this week after the company denied reports that it may purchase HP's PC division. But like the speculated PSG acquisition, Samsung apparently has no interest in what HP has to offer.
Last month HP discontinued its webOS-based tablets and smartphones, but the company claimed that a number of parties were still interested in licensing the software. Speculation currently points to HTC as a possible candidate, and there's also talk that Facebook needs to purchase (or at least license) webOS to better compete with Google and Apple. Naturally both have declined to comment on speculation.
Right now, HP is advertising its PC business as a possible $40B start-up company, separate from HP prime. HP has also stated that there's a strong future for the webOS platform, but as of this writing, its $1.2B software purchase has been put on hold. The TouchPad tablet is slated to make another run at retail shelves for one last hurrah at the cheap $99 and $149 price points, but its brief popularity only indicates that consumers know a good bargain.
