HP CEO Leo Apotheker has confirmed that HP has been in talks with a "number of companies" about licensing webOS. Apotheker previously hinted that HP was open to licensing deals, but now he has confirmed that they are in talks. No further details were given.

According to Bloomberg, Samsung is one of the companies that HP has had talks with. This is not really that surprising as Samsung has made handsets for a variety of OS' over the years.

HP's TouchPad is about to be released and most of the reviews sound about the same. "Nice, but nowhere near the iPad." webOS has some strong features, but it lacks the scale the Android and iOS enjoy. There aren't nearly as many apps for webOS, and the hardware is lacking. Licensing the OS to hardware manufacturers may allow HP to focus on development of the OS so they can catch up to Google and Apple. We'll see.

Are you going to pick up a TouchPad? Let us know in the comments.