Hewlett-Packard will include its mobile operating system, WebOS – acquired when it bought the Palm group last year – on every PC it ships in 2012, as well as Microsoft’s Windows.

Hewlett-Packard will include its mobile operating system, WebOS – acquired when it bought the Palm group last year – on every PC it ships in 2012, as well as Microsoft’s Windows.

CEO Leo Apotheker told Bloomberg his aim is to extend the reach of the WebOS platform and attract more developers to the system.

There are currently only 6000 apps for WebOS, compared to 350,000 in Apple’s App Store, and 250,000 in Google’s Android Marketplace.

WebOS made its debut in 2009 on Palm’s Pre smartphone, but never took off commercially. H-P acquired WebOS along with Palm in 2010, and has since put the OS on some printers and the Pre 2 smartphone. The company is now working on the TouchPad WebOS tablet and two new phones, the Pre 3 and Veer.

But while WebOS phone sales are likely to remain far behind Apple and Android phones, H-P is the largest PC maker in the world, selling more than 60 million units last year. That should make WebOS by far the biggest potential market for app developers.