Samsung Would "Never" Buy WebOS, Says CEO

Samsung CEO Choi Gee Sung has adamantly denied rumors that the South Korean company has any interest in purchasing HP's WebOS. Speculation started brewing that Samsung would be one of the top contenders for the platform after HP announced that it would be discontinuing WebOS hardware to consider licensing the software instead. There was also the possibility that HP would sell the unit entirely.

Samsung was seen as the company in the ultimate position for such a purchase because it had a flourishing hardware business with smartphones and tablets, but seemed alarmed by the Google-Motorola deal that could compromise its competitive position with the Android platform. Scooping up WebOS would give it a new software asset that had features that could differentiate enough from both Android and iOS.

However, that is certainly not the case, according to Choi, who in an interview during IFA 2011 in Berlin, insisted that Samsung would "never" pursue such a deal. Instead, Samsung is quite heavily invested in further developing its own homegrown Bada platform, which has just seen the release of a major update along with three new devices at IFA.

"It's not right that acquiring an operating system is becoming a fashion," Choi said. Samsung, which has its own mobile operating system called Bada, is working to boost its software capability "harder than people outside think."

The future of WebOS continues to look hazy ever since HP made that fateful announcement. But HP Touchpad tablets have surprisingly been selling well despite the news thanks to $99 fire sales. In fact, so well that HP has confirmed its doing one last production run on the tablet. The planned 7-inch HP TouchPad Go probably won't see the light of day and is said to have left HP suppliers with components for over 100,000 units of the tablet.

[via Bloomberg]