HP offers $50 off TouchPad pre-orders for Pre and Pixi phone owners

Teaser

Company offering mail-in-rebate on 32GB model, could also license webOS to other companies

Omar Qudsi, Published 06/30/2011

The TouchPad tablet's official launch is still a couple days away, but now we’re hearing some interesting info about the tablet and its OS. In addition to offering a $50 mail-in-rebate on TouchPad pre-orders, HP could also be looking into licensing its webOS to other companies.

According to a posting on the HP blog, owners of Palm Pre, Pre Plus, Pixi or Pixi Plus phones are eligible for a $50 rebate upon pre-ordering the TouchPad. To redeem the rebate, customers must simply present a receipt of purchase along with the serial number for their phone. Unfortunately, the offer is only valid for the $599 32GB version of the tablet, and doesn’t work with the $499 16GB model.

On the other hand, HP could be attempting to license WebOS to other companies, according to recent reports. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Leo Apotheker, CEO of HP, indicated that HP is in talks with a number of companies and said “I can share with you that a number of companies have expressed interest. We are continuing our conversations”. Mr. Apotheker failed to specify any given timeline for a decision or agreement, but 3 Bloomberg sources indicate that Samsung may be involved in the talks.

Although it is unfortunate that the TouchPad rebate is limited to HP phone owners, it is a great gesture by the company in rewarding their loyal customers. And as far as the other news goes, while it would be interesting to play with a webOS powered Galaxy Tab, we’ll be holding our breath till we actually see what happens with the TouchPad on July 1^st.