LG acquires WebOS, plans to resurrect the OS for its Smart TV efforts

WebOS has been on its death bed for a while now, granted a form of life-support through Open WebOS. Just when things looked bleak for the OS’s future, it is back on its feet with a new owner, LG.

Under the new deal, LG will acquire the websites, documentation, source code and team behind the client side of WebOS. The Palm and WebOS patents, apps catalog, updating system and many of the cloud-related parts of the OS will still belong to HP with LG instead licensing some of these elements.

So what does LG plan to do with the OS? At the moment the company plans to focus on adapting the technology towards its future smart TV efforts. That said, LG doesn’t rule out the possibility of tablets and phones in the distant future. “In the short term, we’ll apply this to the TV only,” says LG CTO Dr. Skott Ahn. “But in the future, wherever our plans take us, we’ll consider an extension to other devices.”

According to the Verge, LG didn’t seem very confident in where they were going with the WebOS. In fact, when asked about the core benefits of WebOS for Smart TVs, Dr. Ahn reportedly went silent for nearly ten seconds before LG’s North American VP Samuel Chang jumped in and simply said, “we’re at the nascent stage” of WebOS smart TV development.

Dr. Ahn did comment that he feels WebOS has better user experience elements than Android, such as its card UI, and even mentioned using Android “together” with WebOS. Ahn didn’t further clarify what he meant by this, but perhaps simply borrowing parts of the WebOS UI for their future skins? That could be interesting.

What do you think of the news of LG acquiring WebOS, could this be a smart move for LG or a foolish waste of money?