Amazon rumored to be latest webOS suitor

According to a "well-placed source" reporting to VentureBeat, Amazon is in discussions with HP to purchase the webOS mobile operating system from the PC giant. Amazon is the latest in a line of companies that have been rumored to be interested in webOS, including HTC, Samsung, and even Facebook.

The source claims that HP is looking to dump webOS as soon as it possibly can, and that the company is close to finalizing a deal with Amazon. HP would not comment on the rumor or speculation, and Amazon did not respond to requests for a comment.

It would be an odd move for Amazon to suddenly purchase webOS from HP, as it has just announced a new tablet called the Kindle Fire that runs a heavily customized version of Android 2.3 Gingerbread. The Kindle Fire is deeply integrated with Amazon's content services, including Kindle books, Prime TV shows and movies, the Amazon MP3 store, and the Amazon Appstore, which offers Android apps - not webOS apps. Amazon would have to work from the ground up to build a similar interface to the Fire on webOS.

Stranger things have happened though, and Jon Rubenstein, who was the head of the webOS unit at Palm and HP until recently, has said as recently as this past summer that "Amazon would certainly make a great partner [for webOS], because they have a lot of characteristics that would help them expand the webOS ecosystem." [via VentureBeat and This Is My Next]