We've sensed that
something's been up with the
HP Slate for a while now, and it looks like we've finally gotten the first solid confirmation that the Windows 7 tablet as
unveiled by Steve Ballmer at CES in January won't hit the consumer market as planned -- speaking at the
Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference, HP Personal Systems Group VP Todd Bradley just said that the Slate will be "more customer-specific than broadly deployed," and that it would launch the Microsoft-based tablet "for the enterprise" in the fall. That fits right in with HP telling us the other day that it was in "customer evaluations" as it
prepared for the "next steps," and based on followup comments from Bradley and Palm head Jon Rubinstein, it certainly sounded like the company will focus Windows tablets at the enterprise and develop a variety of webOS devices for the consumer market. Of course, there's no official announcement yet, so we'll see what happens -- the only thing that we can confidently say is that the HP Slate has definitely succeeded the iPad as the tech industry's
favorite vaporware tablet.
posted July 22nd 2010 5:45PM
Pathetic. Apple's competitors are too scared to even get in the ring.
@Diondon
Kinda a dumb comment when we all know this is due to the web os tablets being developed. Don't be so blind.
Sounds like HP has responded to the Cisco Cius
Yawn, I believe it when i see it in stores.
not even for consumers? that sucks.
I think this is a great idea, everyone that was excited about the HP slate earlier this year was saying how much more it can do than the iPad. However, pretty much everything that was stated was enterprise functionality and not stuff that normal people want to use.
A separate WebOS tablet for the consumer is perfect because there are millions of people that want a Tablet but won't buy an Ipad because they don't like Apple. Even though the iPad perfectly fits their need and would make them happy, the Apple logo is a big deterrent for most americans. On cell phones, WebOS is the closest in usability to iOS, so this new PalmPad will fit in perfectly for the people that refuse to buy Apple products.
I don't care about a Win 7 slate. Until I see webOS on it, oh well.
FAIL HP, FAIL.
@rmbrown09
Hey you got a laugh from me. + 1
I'm looking at this as good news. Probably means it'll have Wacom EMR Pen input and not just multitouch that 99% of consumer tablets have. I look forward to proper note taking in onenote.
Can I offer a theory? It's never been much pointed out on Engadget, but WebOS is ARM oriented, and HP put a lot of work into a x86 tablet with Windows. There was no way they would slap WebOS on it and send it out to consumers. So they skipped it for consumers and will market it to enterprise, while developing an ARM-based tablet with WebOS/2.0
So, not sure if Nilay has something against Apple or if he just doesn't understand what vaporware is, but the iPad isn't vaporware and never was. Just because the blogosphere generated their own rumors about the device for years before it actually became a reality doesn't qualify it as vaporware. Apple announced it, said when it would be shipping and then shipped it.
@iPhone567
Over 9000 units?
This thing really should just be cancelled, its obvious HP dont really want to release this at all running any flavour of Windows. If they have contractual agreements with MS they should just pay them off rather than trying to offload a crappy product on enterprise which will be a failure. Probably want it to fail too so they can have a good laugh.
I consider IT to be the neanderthals of tech. If it wasn't for IT Departments, you would not see so many employees running ten year old Windows NT and using inferior Blackberries. IT Departments are more interested in controlling users than providing users with the best and most powerful options. Otherwise most employees would have iPhones, iPads, and MacBook Pros.
THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN! WE WANT OUR SLATES!
This is hilarious, and far too late for April 1 joke. Love it!
Where are all those people that claimed this would kill the iPad? Its way better, it has flash, blah blah blah. Once again, by the time something like this ever gets to market Apple will have sold 10 million iPads.
@logan1155
Just remember, the people that said the HP Slate would kill the iPad don't run companies. Most couldn't make a go of a home lemonade stand business. Any fool that believes that all you have to do is stick a whole lot of crap on a device and it will sell to consumers is not fit to judge anything. Even after Microsoft tried it a dozen times it never worked. Maybe they figure thirteen times is the charm. Competitors are going to have such a hard time selling their tablets, they won't believe it. When dozens of Android tablets hit the market all at once, consumers won't know what to make of it.
@MosesusedaniPad HP has had plenty of success selling their windows based tablets to enterprises and small businesses, so there's no reason why the HP slate can't sell in the millions. It might not reach iPad numbers because of the iPad's headstart, but it can certainly be a success.
@logan1155
i dont like the fact that the ipad is a giant ipod touch...and twice the price to say the least
i would respect the hell out of that thing if put a "portable" version of OSX on the iPad, i mean that is what i thought it should be running
for $500 why not get an upgraded netbook with ninvida optimus, 3/4gigs of ram, and an i3/i5 processor with a 350gig HDD
i mean i bet i could find a computer sporting those specs for under $700, plus i could play TF2 on it
Hey Microsoft, let this be a lesson to you: *THIS* is how you meet a contractual obligation. Not like you did with the Kin disaster.
@Professor Hubert J Farnsworth
ITS OVER 9000!!!!
curiour 2.0
well it seems i might have to start a business to get one...and right after i sold all of the ones i own
"HP Slate is no longer a consumer product"
Translation: Only businesses will pay the $800+ price tag we have to charge to make any money on this damned thing.
uh, lame?
Anyone who thinks WebOS is a good iPad competitor is dreaming.
Besides tech nerds, who outside of the USA has even heard of WebOS?
Hell I can't even remember the last time I saw a Palm device that wasn't sitting in an IT storage room somewhere 5 years obsolete.
Never mind the fact that nobody ever needed a device between their smartphone and computer until Apple told them they did. I will never understand why I'd want to decide "oh my smartphone is too small to complete this task, I'd better pull out my mobile OS touchscreen consumption device. Oh I need to do some real work, I'd better pull out my laptop.
Give me a laptop replacement full OS touch screen device that can be paired to a bluetooth keyboard any day.
I'll be one of the people buying a launch ExoPC, and throwing my laptop away. I've already replaced my desktop with a windows home server in anticipation, I get enough of being tied to a desk to use a computer at work.
I'm guessing that means they couldn't price it under $1000 or something to that effect.
This Slate seems great..but they will competition, a lot of competition...See what Indians are upto - http://bit.ly/aOPvJK
What the hell. I want this
this is poetically beautiful
@vicmacs I mean pathetical bullshit!
Possibly going after the 'Motion' market
I only just saw this post, but there are some interesting comments here. My take is that currently the only two touch enabled OS's that businesses are likely to adopt are the iPads IOS and Win7... the reason I say that is that neither Android or WebOS support a decent level of security - at least not without third party software. Hell even Google has had added the ability to apply Exchange ActiveSync policies in Google Apps, and yet Andriod still doesn't support encryption.
Obviously HP can't use IOS, so they can either wait until WebOS is updated or ship a Win7 box. That said, I'm quite looking foward to trying one out. Converable tablet PC's are great - I use one every day - but given the choice I'd rather have a slate to work from.
If you're interested I posted some other thoughts here: http://refraction.co.uk/blog/2010/07/25/hps-windows-7-slate-tablet-lives-on/
Apple should just come out with a user-friendly Linux distro, sell it for $10 to all PC manufacturers, create an app store and SDK for it and crush Microsoft.
In other words, the HP slate has been deemed not a competitor to the iPad, and not tapping into it's customer base.
Not to mention, they've already missed the first surge into this new area.
The biggest problem, IMO, is that they are trying to make a tablet PC. That's not what the iPad did, and therefore is not why the iPad was successful.
IMO... RIP. You will not be missed - I'm optimistic now that someone realized the error of this particular implementation.
Now, if that someone could refocus that hardware on an Android OS base, and enable it with all the features/toys (GPS, motion sensor, compass,etc) that is expected in Android devices... use ADW.Launcher with it to make it more "tabletable"
...they'd have an actual iPad competitor that could best it at everything it does.