In a surprising announcement today, HP has said it will sell parts of its webOS product and team members to LG, who plans to use the operating system to power its smart TVs. LG also hasn’t ruled out putting webOS on a phone.
webOS has always been known to be a mobile phone and tablet operating system so it’s interesting to hear that the Korean company plans on implementing it in its TVs. LG will be purchasing the source code, documentation, websites, and the team behind webOS. HP will hold on to webOS’s cloud services, which is a smart move for the company as it will control how webOS devices connect to the cloud. Even smarter, HP has kept all of its patents that it purchased from Palm, forcing LG to license patents for webOS.
It’s strange that LG would buy webOS when it has invested so heavily in Android. LG’s CTO, Dr. Skott Ahn, cites webOS’s ease of use over Android’s.
“We’ll use Android together with webOS, but webOS is better in user experience.”
There’s also no indication whether HP will continue to support the now defunct HP Touchpad as it focuses on creating Android tablets.
Source: The Verge
