Whitman says future of webOS will be decided in two weeks

New HP CEO Meg Whitman has a tough decision about what to do with webOS, so she’s given herself a little more breathing room by saying the final call will come in two weeks.

HP, which bought webOS-creator Palm last year for $1.2 billion, is in a precarious position about what to do with the troubled mobile operating system. After HP axed the HP TouchPad and then saw incredible demand for the discontinued device at a $99 fire-sale price, it was unclear what the best course of action would be. Many rumors have swirled about what the final fate of webOS, with sources saying Amazon wants the OS and a new report suggesting HP will keep webOS working for printers.

Whitman’s latest remarks on webOS came in an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro that was spotted by The Verge. On top of saying the decision would come in two weeks, Whitman said “we need to have another operating system,” which presumably means Windows 8. But Windows 8 on tablets won’t come until 2012, so we’ll have to just see what happens with webOS and the 600 or so employees HP still has working on it.

In early November, Whitman said the company still was unsure what to do with webOS. “It’s really important to me to make the right decision, not the fast decision,” she reportedly said at the time to a room full of HP employees.