HP 2012 PC lineup will all run webOS

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: PC / Laptop, Software

Hewlett-Packard apparently plans to put its newly-developed WebOS on every PC it ships next year, its new chief executive, Leo Apotheker, said.

According to BusinessWeek, in 2012, "every one of the PCs shipped by HP will include the ability to run WebOS in addition to Microsoft Corp.'s Windows, Apotheker said."

It wasn't immediately clear whether HP meant that those PCs would have the horsepower to run WebOS, or whether they would all come bundled. HP representatives were not immediately available for comment.

HP has already announced WebOS for three devices: two new WebOS smartphones - the HP Veer and the Pre 3 - and its widely anticipated new tablet, the HP TouchPad.

But Apotheker said that the goal was to attract a "massive platform" of developers.

According to Steven McArthur, the senior vice president for the consumer applications business within the Personal Systems Group at HP, WebOS on the PC was positioned as a way to expand the developer ecosystem. WebOS has a little less than 7,000 apps, more than RIM's BlackBerry or Microsoft's Windows Phone 7, McArthur said. (Researcher Distimo disagrees, claiming that both of the latter app stores stock more apps than Palm.) But HP/Palm has its sights set on Apple's iOS and Google's Android, both of which have many, many more.

"We think that, with a very large footprint of devices that people can write to, hence the 100 million number that Todd talked about [Wednesday] morning, ultimately developers will come to large platforms," McArthur said.

And what kind of devices will those be? At least based on McArthur's comments, a closed system like Google's Chrome OS CR-48 netbooks might be favored at the outset.

"We're working with developer tools to run to various qualifiers," McArthur said. "Will I scale to every single PC form factor out there? No. But it will scale to most. You need to get components, chipsets, like that, all lined up. And there are always edge cases – there is so much diversity in the PC world that there are always edge cases."

This article, written by Mark Hachman, originally appeared on PCMag.com and is republished on Gear Live with the permission of Ziff Davis, Inc.