HP Palm: Taking webOS Beyond Smartphones?

That’s it right there; nothing special: It’s Palm’s new logo, which handsomely features the HP logo in a circle to the left of it. Does the logo offer some clues about HP’s mobile strategy for Palm and the webOS operating system? The simple answer: Yes. Take a look.

Palm’s site features the HP Palm logo and the new Palm Pre 2, which is slated to debut any moment now. But here’s the twist: Instead of mentioning Palm webOS 2.0, Hewlett-Packard is promoting “HP webOS 2.0.”

Moving Beyond Smart Phones

So while the Palm name itself will stay with the phone, and likely the entire phone line up, it seems like HP has bigger plans with webOS. If webOS becomes a bit more ubiquitous on all sorts of devices, it’ll be important for HP to stake it’s virtual claim with the HP brand directly attached to webOS.

For instance, HP may eventually have a section of “HP mobile devices with HP webOS.” Suddenly the branding seems important, especially if you want to keep Palm making the phones and provide some sort of brand loyalty and/or separation for “Palm mobile devices with HP webOS.”

It’s actually a smart move, because with Apple and Google tossing around iOS and Android all the time, HP needs to get people knowing about webOS more. And while HP is a name that may be a bit more known than Palm, it’s definitely a ‘stronger’ brand name behind the product.

We’ll see how HP fares with their newly acquired OS as 2011 rolls on and the mobile wars heat up.

Sign up for The VAR Guy’s Weekly Newsletter, Webcasts and Resource Center. Follow The VAR Guy via RSS, Facebook and Twitter. Follow experts at VARtweet. Read The VAR Guy’s editorial disclosures here.