War of the Tablets
Will there ever be a better tablet that the iPad? Samsung’s was close but were sued as they were too similar to the famous iPad and HP’s TouchPad was a complete flop. HP decided to axe their tablet within a few months after it was released, hardly a best seller!
HP – a well-known and reliable technology company, providing us all with both hardware and software. So when they decided to buy Palm in 2010, they were sure that everyone would own one of their handsets/tablets. CEO of the company, Leo Apotheker was convinced that webOS would be on all HP PC’s by 2012. It’s not quite 2012 yet, but it’s obvious that his prediction was wrong. Looking at UK figures, their TouchPad sold a mere 100 units in comparison to the iPad and iPad 2 which sold out within their release week! Not quite the results they were expecting.
The question remains, where have HP gone from there? After losing billions, they decided to slash the price of the TouchPad, which of course increased sales but not enough to make a profit from the tablet. The poor sales made it easier for HP to decide what to do. The tablet was axed and the future of webOS will be decided upon in December by newly appointed CEO Meg Whitman.
As for actually using webOS, its design is simple and it’s easy to use, aesthetically it’s all hunky dory but when it comes to using it for a while, it is a little slow (a good few seconds) to open an app or file, not something you really want when there are better tablets/handsets for the same-ish price which have a better performance. This is probably something Ms Whitman should consider when reviewing the fate of webOS.
Despite HP’s poor decision to invest in webOS, the company must be doing something right as they are turning over a profit of around $10 billion!! Will Whitman’s decisions be those which produce the next best tablet? We’ll have to see in the coming months!