HP CEO: Say goodbye to ‘open’ Android

While speaking at HP’s global partner summit in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman discussed her company’s strategy moving forward, further emphasizing the potential of the now open-source webOS platform. Whitman is already on record saying that webOS offers big benefits compared to iOS (which is closed) and Android (which is fragmented), and now the chief executive is pushing things a step further. ”I think there is room for another operating system,” Whitman said at the summit according to Channel EMEA. “IOS is great but it is a closed system. I think that Android may end up as a closed system because of [Google’s] relationship with Motorola.” Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility was approved by U.S. and European regulators earlier this week, and Whitman suggests the union may end up having a huge impact on Android’s future. Google has said that its Motorola buy won’t affect other Android partners adversely but as the company works to develop a new generation of own-brand hardware, the future of the platform as it stands today is anything but certain.