It’s no secret that Hewlett Packard is open to the idea of talking to other hardware manufacturers about the possibility of licensing webOS for use in their products; CEO Leo Apotheker said as much several weeks back. At the time, the comment seemed more theoretical than anything, but it’s starting to seem like there might be something to such a partnership, as Apotheker continues to discuss such possibilities and a new rumor emerges that Samsung has been in discussions with HP regarding this sort of licensing.

Both HP and Samsung had no comment on the rumors, but Bloomberg reports that a trio of sources has reported such meetings taking place, specifically to discuss smartphones – not tablets or any other webOS-based appliance. It’s likely that a successful experiment with any one type of device would spur Samsung on to look at webOS on others, but we’re just happy to hear that its first could be a smartphone.

Now, granted, Samsung is a huge company, with the resources to get things done simultaneously on many fronts. It’s just already so invested in Android production, and shows no sign of losing interest in Windows Phone 7, would getting into the webOS game be a great idea? It’s not so much concern we have over spreading itself too thin to do a good job, but we’d really like to see a company put some serious effort into crafting a really standout webOS smartphone. Could that be Samsung? We’ll see.

Source: Bloomberg

Via: PhoneScoop