Hewlett-Packard will be releasing a new line of smartphones early next year, utilizing the webOS software that came along the acquisition of Palm, which amounted to $1.2 billion. Palm is one of the pioneers in hand-held devices, and this means HP does not necessarily have to make Android devices for all of eternity. From Reuters,

“You will see us coming early next year with new phones,” Senior Vice President Eric Cador told an industry conference in Barcelona. “More importantly we acquired webOS,” Cador added.

Palm is one of the pioneers in hand held devices, with intellectual property described by Candor as “extremely fundamental. This is a great opportunity for HP to get more involved into the booming mobile industry, while retaining more control over the mobile handset, platform and end-user experience. While Android is dominating the mobile OS scene, the mobile market overall is rising, and is a highly profitable one.

Several PC manufacturers including Dell, Lenovo and Acer are all pushing into smartphones with email, streaming video, voice calls and GPS.  Considering HP’s other areas of focused growth, particularly the cloud, smartphones act as another peice of a larger puzzle.  Maintaining a higher level of control over the entirety of the mobile experience means more seamless operations for users, and cross-leveraging of HP’s existing products and services.  Apple is doing a great deal to grow its cloud initiatives in a similar overarching tactic, while Google was clear about its own methods from the beginning.