HTC Corp., the second largest Asia-based smartphone maker, is gaining market share with devices running on Google's Android operating system. Now it's setting its sights on an own platform.

HTC execs told Taiwan's Central News Agency that it has had internal discussions about purchasing a new OS. The likely candidate would be Hewlett-Packard's webOS, according to reports.

Hewlett-Packard bought Palm Inc. for $1.2 billion in July 2010. It launched the TouchPad, which runs on Palm's webOS, in July this year. Following poor sales of the TouchPad and consumers' continued preference for the market leading iPad, HP announced that it will be discontinuing production of webOS devices.

After Apple started selling 7 to 8 million units of the $499-and-up iPad every quarter, device-makers unveiled their own tablets. But poor sales of the Motorola Xoom, Research In Motion's PlayBook, and Hewlett-Packard's TouchPad, which had the same pricing of the iPad, indicated that consumers weren't going to spend $499 for non iPad tablets.

But after HP slashed the TouchPad's price from $499 to $99, demand for the tablet skyrocketed, and the tablet was promptly sold out in stores. This means that notwithstanding that the TouchPad didn't have the Apple brand, user interface, Apple's unified ecosystem, content from iTunes, and apps from the Apple App store, consumers are willing to buy a non-iPad tablet if the price is right.

If HTC buys webOS and ditches Android, it would need to incur expenses by itself to upgrade the platform and it would not be able to woo developers if the platform doesn't penetrate the market. It might need to continue what HP has been doing in the past month -- sell smartphones and tablets at a loss, until HTC and webOS obtain enough following.

Buying webOS or Sticking with Android?

"We have given it thought and we have discussed it internally, but we will not do it on impulse. We can use any OS we want. We are able to make things different from our rivals on the second or third layer of a platform. Our strength lies in understanding an OS, but it does not mean that we have to produce an OS," said Cher Wang, the chairwoman of HTC, in an interview with the Economic Observer news-paper, reports Focus Taiwan.

Of course, HTC can stick to Android but, the Android has been a target of lawsuits by Oracle Inc. and Apple. And, Google has signed a deal to purchase Android device-maker Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. With Motorola in its helm, Google will now be a tablet and smartphone vendor, and a direct competitor to HTC.

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