Facebook could put a serious hurting on Google’s mobile numbers if it acquired webOS from HP and retooled the software as its own smartphone operating system. Although HP has yet to decide what it plans to do with webOS and its Personal System Group (PSG), Digitimes Research offers an interesting prediction that the company could hand its operating system over to Facebook. This would reportedly have a huge impact on the industry and could be just as successful as Google’s high-performance Android OS. And like Google, Facebook’s OS would depend solely on advertising, thus the software itself would be free to manufacturers.

“If HP decides to sell webOS to social network site Facebook, it would have the largest impact on competition in the mobile operating system market, among all other possible outcomes, since Facebook has shown ambitions to cut into the mobile operating system market with its acquisition of Snaptu, a company that has developed an application that allows feature phones to have a similar interface as that of smartphones,” reads the report.

Facebook is already working with HTC to integrate the social website’s numerous applications into the HTC Salsa and Chacha. It’s also reportedly put the iPad app on hold because Facebook wants control of account information which goes against Apple’s policy. This is one of the reasons why Facebook is taking the backdoor route by spearheading the Project Spartan effort which offers a library of HTML5-based apps that can be accessed in a supporting browser – no Apple taxation or restrictions are encountered.

Purchasing webOS from HP could be a huge win for Facebook. As it stands now, Google is seemingly cornering the rival social website with a huge offering: a mobile operating system with a native video client, a native document writer, a native navigation system, a native social website, a native music locker, a native search engine, a native e-mail client… the list goes on. Facebook can merely be accessed via a simple app on Android and iOS, but a free Facebook-owned operating system installed on 750 million phones could really put a serious hurting on Google’s mobile numbers.

In addition to Facebook, Digitimes also predicted that if Samsung or HTC acquired webOS from HP, then the software would only help reduce their reliance on Google’s Android. If they bought the operating system solely for the patents, then there’s a good chance webOS development would not continue. If neither manufacture purchases the software, then HP will probably not expand development beyond its current commitments.

Digitimes’ report of a possible Facebook OS isn’t the first, and will likely not be the last. But as the report suggests, Facebook may be the only entity that will have the resources to resurrect the dying OS – it certainly won’t be HP as recent months have shown.