Amazon in talks with HP to buy Palm 15 years ago
Amazon will make iPod Touch like devices before they make phones (although the Kindle Fire already falls into that market segment due its price point).
This proposed webOS purchase is to hedge their bets against Google keeping ICS and future versions closed source. Amazon can't out a 10" Kindle tablet with the underlying system based on Gingerbread. The Amazon services could be provided but there would be no apps and games made for it.