This rather strange statement, for a company otherwise more known for its execution than its talk, comes from HP Europe’s Eric Cador. He says:
“In the PC world, with fewer ways of differentiating HP’s products from our competitors, we became number one,”… “In the tablet world we’re going to become better than number one. We call it number one plus.”
Mr Cador was referring to HP’s Touchpad tablet and its Web OS operating system, as he believes that HP would ultimately dominate in the tablet market just as it dominates the PC market now.
At the moment, Apple dominates that marker, by far , with Android competitors just showing up with good alternatives like the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which has a striking design. Yet, Android users don’t yet have the vast choice (or quality) of apps Apple users have.
With its Palm tablets, HP comes from a position that is even more difficult than Google’s. Although its design is fairly attractive, the tablet doesn’t yet have the developer support that it needs to become a mainstream powerhouse. HP intends to change that by using WebOS on its computers and other peripheral as well, but that has yet to materialize.
While, we should not discount HP’s shot to fame, Mr. Cador’s comment seems very optimistic to say the least. What seems to be missing from this analysis is that HP currently dominates a market where practically every player uses Windows as an operating system / user experience. It can then use its size to provide products that have certain qualities for the price in select markets (business, consumers…). Things are seemingly quite different in the tablet world, and HP will have to convince users that its Web OS is the right software platform for them. [via Ubergizmo FR]
What do you think?
Filed in . Read more about HP, Hp Touchpad and Tablet.