"HP is more than willing to partner with one or two special companies," said Jon Rubinstein, who runs the Palm unit at HP. "But at the same time, HP is not interested in being in the general licensing business." Rubinstein spoke at a Qualcomm conference that was webcast.

A "special" company would be one that brings value to WebOS, not one that already makes phones using a variety of operating systems, he said. "But if someone wants to put a real focus on contributing and building the WebOS ecosystem, that would be something we're interested in," he said.

Palm has licensed its software in the past, but with the launch of the new WebOS software, the company initially did not have a licensing program. However, when sales of WebOS products proved weak, Rubinstein, who ran Palm before HP bought it, changed course and said he was open to licensing.

Despite WebOS's small market share, Rubinstein thinks it has an edge over competitors. "We're well-positioned, HP is, for where this marketplace is going to go," he said. People are going to want various devices that connect and interact, he said. With WebOS running on phones, tablets and even PCs, people will be able to connect those devices.

HP's TouchPad, which runs WebOS, is expected to go on sale this month. Users will be able to touch a Palm phone to the pad, and the phone will automatically display the Web page that's on the screen of the tablet.