HP has made news, once again, but this time, this is good news! HP’s WebOS is now open source. WebOS was originally developed by Palm, Inc, and it is really became the first known “smartphone OS”. (WebOS is basically a successor to Palm OS, initially developed in 1996 for PDAs. WebOS is the latest living history of the legacy of Palm OS.) Sure we had “Windows Mobile/Pocket PC”, but that was a major fail at best. Over the years, WebOS has proved to be a very solid and simple operating system, creating fans from all over the tech industry.

Of course, HP buys Palm, Inc, along with WebOS. Unfortunately for HP, it couldn’t use WebOS to tackle the iPad nor the buggy Android tablets. To make matters worse, with the coming launch of Windows 8, HP is dedicated to make Windows 8 tablets. So, where did WebOS stand; the tech industry was quite worried about the fate of the beloved operating system. Thankfully, though, HP has made the right decision, in our opinion. WebOS is now open, and this could be big!

Now Android is no longer the only open-source choice for developers and manufacturers. We may now see more WebOS based tablets and phones, and given many think this OS is more stable than Android, it can be a win for consumers. Furthermore, because the OS is now open-source, we may see other developers and/or companies actively developing the OS in the years to come.

While I don’t see this as a sign of death for Android or iOS, I do believe this is a positive thing for consumers. Hopefully, we will have another real competition in the market soon.