For about a week now I have been trying to make sense of HP dropping the Touchpad like a hot potatoe. Why HP would kill Palm after buying it and raking off WebOS is still making me scratch my head. Noted : The HP slate (which still appears to be in production and available) is truly a NOGO device with Windows 7 but the Touch pad with the touch stone technology and WebOS and the R&D muscle of HP was seen to be the only true contender to the Apple iPad / iPhone jaugernaut!
Frequently I get into discussions about Android with people and as a technocrat, I like the semi-Opensource origins of Android as a platform but there is a such thing as too open. It is very difficult to all things to all people and without being married to a hardware platform, it is difficult to become a market leader on such a broad level. Just ask the Linux Penguin.
I love Linux and have been a fan since the days of the Slackware Floppy drive distribution but not even I (eUnix aka The Magnanimous Computron) can decide on one flavor over the other. Yes, I use Ubuntu , Kubuntu, Debian, FreeBSD and even Puppy Linux but I also run HP/UX, AIX, OpenSolaris, Windows 7 , Vista, OSX and iOS in my home network in search of the elusive homogeneous environment.
I have even ported Android to the PC but it will suffer from Linux Syndrome until they marry it with a hardware platform and invoke quality control like what Apple has done!
Maybe this is what Google is attempting to do with the purchase of Motorola and as I was reading through my news RSS feeds I found this article that may give some insight as to what HP may be planning with the trash of the TouchPad.
Possible Responses to Motorola-Google Merger
Proceed to item #2
- 2. Amazon and Hewlett-Packard team up via WebOS
Google, Apple, and Amazon have increasingly become competitors in the wider online world. Each of these companies now offers cloud-based content, and they're vying for consumer loyalty to their services. Devices such as Apple's iPhone and iPad and Google's Android devices provide that link to the cloud the services. And as portable devices, such as smartphones and tablets replace desktop and laptop computers, the battle for consumers hearts and minds will be fought in the mobile market.
While Amazon and Google are rivals when it comes to cloud services, they are also budding partners. Amazon is rumored to be developing tablets using the Google Android platform. But Google's purchase of Motorola may threaten this relationship with Amazon. And as a result, force Amazon to look for an alternative to Android.
Hewlett-Packard could be the perfect partner, according to ZDNet blogger Jason Perlow. HP, which bought Palm for its WebOS mobile operating system, hasn't seen much success with its first tablet, the TouchPad. But the WebOS software has actually won a lot of praise from experts. Perlow thinks that HP should cut a deal with Amazon.
He said that HP could continue to advance the WebOS technology, while leveraging Amazon's sales and distribution network for the tablets and phones that use the operating system. But more importantly, Amazon could provide the cloud services and content for the WebOS devices, including books, video, music, storage, and e-books. Currently, one of WebOS's biggest problems is that it doesn't have any content relative to Apple and Google.
On the hardware side, Amazon already has lots of experience partnering with Asian device makers for its Kindle e-readers.
Amazon could serve as the primary brand for the WebOS devices, giving HP much-needed marketing and distribution for its products. It could be a win-win for each company. But Perlow points out that this also means that Amazon would have to abandon or curtail its existing strategy for its Amazon Appstore for Android and its plans to build Android tablets.
With only a few weeks on the market the buzz amist the masses was that the product was good but everyone was waiting for the price to come down a little bit. Now where will you find a new artist, sport figure, public speaker or anyone who will try to enter a market and demand top billing.
The net buzz was that HP was not satisfied with the number of sales they were generating for the product and conventional wisdom is that they should have entered the market at #3 and allowed their popularity to swell up and quickly build up the web store.
