Already there wholesale Business Services is plenty of talk about the possibility of HP licensing the WebOS operating system - used previously in Palm's range of phones, and most recently in the TouchPad adjustable shoulder strap computer bag tablet (which, sold for $100, has done bumper business over the weekend in the US, we hear).According to a few hopeful people both inside and outside HP, the idea is that some company somewhere has a hardware Red With Buttons Long Sleeve Axis Powers Hetalia specification sitting there, into which it is just aching to pour someone else's OS and software.So how likely is this?Not at all.Consider a few facts and problems that any manager that wanted to license WebOS would have to face.Palm - which, it's easy to forget, used to be a force in smartphones - had a good run at patchwork fashion scarves getting WebOS established in the smartphone market in 2009. We and thought that it was "valiant", though of course even then the comment was that: "The Palm store, by the way, is easy to navigate but sparsely populated."The Pre didn't make enough of an impact, however - too much competition from everything else, such as the iPhone and the fast-rising Android segment - and Palm almost ran out of money before being bought by simple elegant pattern towels HP for $1.2bn in 2010. And you know how that turned out: from being a consumer-focussed company led by Mark Hurd, HP has transmogrified into an enterprise-services-facing company led by Leo Apotheker. That meant that the rug had been half-pulled out from under WebOS's feet. But don't think that Apotheker didn't give WebOS a chance. I didn't hear anyone say that they thought the TouchPad wasn't given a chance. Everything around its launch - which dollar stores has been simmering since February at least, when HP was briefing journalists (including me) at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona about how determined it was and how it would push the enterprise capabilities of WebOS and use its heft to make it take off - had the Sex Dolls  determination of a big company.The TouchPad was priced to sell and to make a profit - which is always important: no point selling hardware at a loss unless you know you have your customers locked into something very profitable. (Even mobile networks don't sell handsets at a loss now; they just subsidise the price over the life of the handset, but you pay for it.) I never china wholesalers saw anyone suggesting that the TouchPad launch and promotion (ah, Russell Brand adverts - hope you got paid, Russell) was half-hearted.The TouchPad didn't take off, though; enterprises didn't go for it and consumers seem to have decided that wholesale shoes they had other options.