Kangal, I don't think that what you were outlining was probable, however. (Did you mean possible?) Let's talk probable outcomes, though...

You say they were ABLE to make alterations, but their own engineers pointed out that they weren't able to--and, in fact, Qualcomm (designer of the architecture they ended up using) was able to run Android far better on that same hardware. I'm not sure how you got that impression when HP engineers themselves didn't have that opinion. That bodes far better for Android than it does for WebOS, in terms of adaptability... and the myriad of hardware able to run Android already proved that well before. HP is hardly a stranger to writing or adapting operating systems, however. They still own HP-UX, Tru64, OpenVMS, NonStop, HP RTE (Run-Time Executive), HP MIE (Mobile Internet Experience), HP MPE (Multi-Programming Executive), and so on and so on in addition to supporting Linux, Microsoft's Windows, and have been supporting these products for many, many years before they bought WebOS and even continue to code for and support most of these operating systems in JUST the items that I listed. I think you forgot that you were talking about HEWLETT-PACKARD... not Palm. WebOS was hardly top-notch when it was riddled with glitches and exploits--some of them JUST from web-based HTML5 exploits. Again, the engineers who worked on it THEMSELVES admitted as much. It was STILL a work-in-progress that was shoved out the door very quickly and in need of much tender loving care from engineers and its own community. HP failed to understand that and made several fatal missteps along the way. I still think it's salvageable, but that window is closing VERY rapidly.

BUT--in no way can Nokia help themselves by simply acquiring it. Nokia already had a perfectly fine set of operating systems and through inaction and ineptitude allowed much of it to die off. WebOS would not have helped what they were already doing badly--even the Palm division executives weren't doing very well to push their own platform so you couldn't have even hoped that changing executives through such an acquisition would improve anything. The ecosystem in both was also a failure--ovistore isn't popular--very few people actually LIKED it even amongst the N900 owners themselves (everybody remember ANGRY MAN being pitched in lieu of the actual good, new content people really wanted?), nor was WebOS's app shop.

I sincerely think that what Nokia should have done was to put more effort into supporting what they ALREADY had, LISTEN to customers/engineers/developers, and ADVERTISE their products cleverly. They did NONE of that and to pretend that they can fix it all by just slapping Windows Phone 7 on there is to continue to neglect those obvious points. The ecosystem will continue to be irrelevant so long as said ecosystem is STILL run by Nokia in the way Nokia has been running it all along.

We know Microsoft has already burned bridges in the past with customers, salespeople and vendors. This is already a shaky start. This is like combining two disgusting flavors that taste even more repulsive together--it's like the most repulsive KIT-KAT bar you can imagine made from bodily wastes. So if we're to look at where they are now and the current direction--nothing with regard to a WebOS acquisition can save them now.