HP ponders Windows 8 tablets

On Friday, HP’s brand new webOS-powered TouchPad tablet will make its debut in the United States. Even though HP purchased Palm for $1.2 billion last year so that it could stray away from the Windows-powered tablet market by owning webOS, the company may soon build tablets running Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating system. In a recent interview with Fast Company, HP’s president and chief technology officer Phil McKinney suggested that Windows 8 tablets could be in the pipeline. “I’m limited to what I can talk about with Windows 8,” McKinney says. “We’re working very closely with [Microsoft], and I’m going to leave it at that or I’m going to start getting myself into trouble.” We could take McKinney’s statement two ways. First, HP is already a Microsoft partner on Windows 7 powered devices, so to deny Microsoft support for Windows 8 could be a blow to the Redmond-based company. Or second, HP does have a Windows 8 powered tablet in the works, but doesn’t want to start spreading rumors, especially during the launch of the company’s new flagship TouchPad device. We’ll have to wait and see what HP decides to do, but it seems like a confusing move — at least from the customer perspective — for HP to offer both operating systems on its tablet devices.