Hewlett-Packard CEO Léo Apotheker: We Want webOS on Every HP PC

Hewlett-Packard has been primarily a hardware company for decades, yet a few years ago it went out and acquired Palm, largely for its webOS operating system. Now it finds itself in a situation akin to Apple’s, one in which it controls not just the hardware it sells to consumers, but the operating system that runs on it and a connected cloud element as well. Is HP creating its own end-to-end ecosystem?

Speaking at D9 Wednesday, Hewlett-Packard CEO Léo Apotheker said that’s exactly what it’s doing.

“We want to create a holistic ecoystem around webOS,” Apotheker said. “We’re putting it on phones, on our TouchPad tablet which will debut as scheduled this summer. And we’ll put webOS on PCs….It will go on every PC that we’ll ship.”

It will go on every PC that we’ll ship.

Does that mean it will someday replace Windows on HP’s PCs?

Apotheker wouldn’t say definitively, but the thought has clearly crossed his mind. “In the beginning, webOS will sit on top of Windows,” he said. “But the intention is to get it out there on every PC.”