HP said that in addition to printers and smartphones it would also use webOS operating system he got as a result of taking over Palm on tablet personal computers as well as netbooks. The actual plans remain unconfirmed, but it looks like the company does have serious intentions when it comes to webOS.

“With HP’s full backing and global strengths, I’m confident that webOS will be able to reach its full potential. This agreement will accelerate the development of this incredible platform with new resources, scale and support from a world-respected brand,” said Jon Rubinstein, former Palm chairman and chief executive officer who will now work at HP.

HP’s global scale and financial strength plus Palm’s award-winning webOS experience, as well as its acclaimed Pre and Pixi smartphone product lines, enhance HP’s ability to participate more aggressively in the highly profitable, $100 billion smartphone and connected mobile device markets. Palm will be responsible for webOS software development and webOS based hardware products, from a robust smartphone roadmap to future slate PCs and netbooks, HP said.

HP has already announced plans to install webOS onto its printers, but using the operating system originally developed for smartphones on slate PCs and netbooks seems to be a surprising decision. Nonetheless, it should be kept in mind that it will take HP some time to tailor the webOS for personal computers. At present the OS works only on ARM processors that power smartphones, whereas netbooks and slates use x86 chips and hence the operating system needs to be redesigned. As a result, it will take months or even longer for webOS to find itself on tablets or netbooks.

“With webOS, HP will deliver its customers a unique and compelling experience across smartphones and other mobility products. This allows us the opportunity to fully engage in growing our smartphone family offering and the footprint of webOS,” said Todd Bradley, executive vice president of personal systems group at HP.

Tags: HP, Palm, webOS