Nowadays, every major manufacturer is busy building the next generation tablet, the one that surpasses all the others before it, and HP is betting on the webOS for a new tablet that, if the rumors are true, should be available in Q1 2011.

HP's acquisition of Palm has risen many questions regarding what the company would have in store for webOS, Palm's mobile operating system, and where we should see it next.

Now, we may have an answer to those questions as Engadget claims that HP might launch a webOS tablet in the first quarter of 2011.

The rumor claims that Tom Bradley, Personal Systems Group VP over at HP has mentioned that date during an all-hands employee meeting.

Although we know that internally the project is referred to as “Hurricane” more info is not available, but considering webOS's hardware requirements, is very possible that the HP tablet will feature an ARM processor, like Qualcomm's Snapdragon or Samsung's Hummingbird.

Of course that feature ARM based processors are not ruled out, but the pretty near-term release date will probably constrain HP to chips already available.

A possible webOS tablet should go right next to the Windows 7 enterprise slate and the Android Zeen e-reader in HP's tablet plans, so competition should be really interesting, sooner or later HP having to decide on what operating system it will support.

Let's just say that Q1 2011 will certainly mark a crucial point in webOS's feature, Palm's mobile operating system having a tough road in front of it.  

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