webOS Netbooks Coming According to HP Training Materials

HP has been teasing about a webOS tablet prior to the slate announcement, but the company’s training materials may reveal that in addition to tablets, HP may be eyeing the netbook/smartbook market. According to PreCentral, recent training information for HP employees was leaked and reveals that the company may be looking into the netbook form factor for its webOS platform. The teaser training information reads:

If I could run webOS on my phone and a slate and a netbook…

And they all talked to each other and shared information.

A friendly little product family…

That connects you to the world in amazing new ways.

I’m in. Let’s go

Today, let’s start with the phones. Tomorrow will come soon enough

HP, since acquiring handheld-maker Palm, has been releasing smartphones based on the webOS platform and the company is looking to expand its energy-efficient, multitasking mobile operating system to include more hardware platforms. webOS is the mobile operating system of choice for HP–the company says it is no longer releasing future Android products after the eStation Zeen printer/tablet combo. The company has also chosen to discontinue its relationship with Microsoft in the mobile space; after having been a Windows Mobile licensee for its handhelds, HP has decided to skip Windows Phone 7 in favor of webOS for its mobile products.

In the past, numerous codenames for potential HP Palm products have been leaked, of which one is expected to be tablet. While we haven’t heard of a webOS smartbook or netbook rumor in the past, the company did say previously that it will be expanding its webOS line to include more products. Having a smartbook would help HP compete against Motorola, which has released its Atrix 4G smartphone for AT&T along with a Laptop Dock that converts the smartphone into a smartbook, as demoed in the video below.