According to reports, HP is investigating the possibility of building its own version of Linux, designed for "mass market" systems.
It comes less than a month after IBM announced that it was looking to break the stranglehold that Microsoft had on its systems.
Business Week cites anonymous sources at HP who claim the vendor’s PC division is looking at the possibility of creating a "mass market operating system" to break its reliance on Microsoft’s Windows.
HP didn’t deny that it was looking into creating its own operating system, but it did cast doubt upon the speculation, with the CTO of its Personal Systems Group, Phil McKinney telling Business Week: "Is HP funding a huge R&D team to go off and create an operating system? (That) makes no sense."