Retail Roundup - HP TouchPad Clearance Sale Edition
Hoping to score at least discounted HP TouchPad at retail, I got an early start on Saturday morning and made a number of visits this weekend to several stores that had been staunch supporters of HP's short-lived TouchPad retail effort.
Read on to see what I found in the way of Touchpad and accessory deals.
Wal-Mart
Three local Super Wal-Mart stores were wiped out of TouchPad stock early Saturday morning. Two stores had removed all TouchPad-related accessories were removed from their shelves but the third store still had the HP AC adapter kit in stock at its original MSRP as well as some generic screen protectors at regular price. A helpful but clueless electronics department employee told me that they had people coming in all morning begging for TouchPads after quickly selling the handful of units they had in inventory.
Sunday afternoon at Best Buy. TouchPads replaced by Toshiba Notebooks.
Best Buy
On Saturday afternoon I visited two local Best Buy locations. Both stores had removed their TouchPads and all HP-branded accessories from the HP stand-alone display in the PC department but two Veer display models remained at one store. By mid-afternoon Sunday, everything related to WebOS had disappeared (including the Veer) from those stores and a large sign was posted on the door stating that they were sold out of all TouchPads and would not be receiving any more. One employee told me on Saturday that all stock was being "sent back" though reports online indicated that Best Buy did cave and liquidate some inventory at the reduced prices.
As far as a non-HP accessories for TouchPads, I saw plenty of Zagg screen protectors for the TouchPad at all three Best Buy locations but that was pretty much the extent of it.
Saturday Afternoon at one Best Buy
Office Depot
The local Office Depot had posted a bright yellow "out of stock" sign on the front doors by noon on Saturday. A return trip on Sunday revealed nothing new. Inside, all TouchPad display models had been removed and replaced by redundant Android-based tablets. Only a single HP TouchStone dock remained as a reminder of the TouchPad's brief retail existence. My suspicion is that the surprisingly tablet-savvy employee grinning wildly at me nabbed the majority of the TouchPads at this store well in advance.
Sam's Club
I wasn't able to hit Sam's Club on Saturday but by midday Sunday, the nearby Sam's had removed all traces of the HP Touchpad from its previous end cap display. Online reports from some lucky customers indicate that Sam's did blow out their TouchPad stock for the reduced prices just like corporate sister Wal-Mart.
Costco
Costco's rapid turnover and downsizing of their tablet section continues and by all accounts they did not participate in the TouchPad closeout pricing madness. On Saturday afternoon, the local Costco still had the 32GB TouchPad + case bundle on sale for a staggering $579. By midday Sunday, this had been replaced entirely by an expanded Vizio tablet display.
Costco may feel that the non-Apple tablet fad has already run its course. A few months ago, Costco was heavily pushing Motorola's wi-fi and 3G Xoom tablets, only to supplant it with the slightly more affordable Acer Iconia A500 in June, which was in turn replaced in July by HP's TouchPad. A low-cost 8" Vizio Android tablet appeared several weeks and with the departure of the HP and Acer offerings, is now Costco's sole tablet offering (at least at my local stores).
Like many other frustrated deal hunters, I spent a lot of time and gas racing around town this past weekend looking for a nonexistent TouchPad bargain. I think it's definitely safe to say that bargain hunters only stood a slight chance of nabbing a TouchPad this past weekend, so any hope at all for a deal in the future will likely be online as HP restocks their online store with the last of their unsold inventory. Greedy resellers are all over E-Bay and Craigslist with TouchPads going for roughly double the clearance pricing, so the deal potential there is practically nil.
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RE: Pixi's Are Free w 2yr!
Doubling the price on eBay is no biggie. That's what the big boxes do every day. It's just binnis! It will be interesting to watch 300,000 devices at 1/6 retail hit market in a matter of days. Could be an interesting supply + demand study.
Pat Horne
BestBuy Socal
No news of which will have any new shipments past today since the store's SKU/inventory check shows nothing upcoming.
Palm III->Sony NR610C->Sony NR70->Sony NX80->Palm T|X->HTC Kaiser->HTC Fuze->Acer M900->HTC HD2->HTC G2+NookColor
Did HP intentionally POISON the tablet market?
1) Flood the market with hundreds of thousands of tablets.
2) Raise awareness amongst millions of consumers of the existence of a non-Apple tablet and OS.
3) Potentially irrevocably damage the tablet market's pricing structure by undercutting the market leader (Apple) by a truly shocking 80% ($400).
For a company used to having its webOS devices completely ignored by the market, HP certainly knows how to attract attention - albeit at a price that hurts its bottom line. The past week's sale is analogous to an ugly girl that couldn't get a date going to a bar wearing no underwear and see-through top. Odds are she will immediately get propositioned by a LOT of guys who are drunk (on the judgement-impairing liquor of the current tablet fad [yes Virginia, it really is just a fad right now]). So the ugly girl (HP's webOS) is getting plenty of action right now, but what were her motives?:
1) Quickly increasing her pool of "friends" (users)? HP probably will have expanded the pool of users with webOS tablets from less than 150,000 (after an embarassing 7 rejection-filled weeks on the market) to over 500,000 in one gangbanging, orgy-filled weekend. But what was the point? HP will have spent tens of millions of dollars paying for this wild party, yet said in advance that it plans for webOS to kill herself (cease sales of all webOS devices) in the very near future. Was the weekend party an expensive way to buy "friends" for WebOS's equally-ugly younger sister (any companies planning on buying/licensing webOS)? Seem like a first year Marketing 101 student could come up with a better method if that was the plan.
2) Giving away all of her possessions before she kills herself? Sure it's probably nice to be able to give millions of random strangers $200 each. But what if every $200 (the approximate amount HP is losing on each discounted tablet) "gift" had to be paid for by webOS's surviving family? Does that make ANY sense? Wouldn't selling the TouchPad at cost have been a much smarter way to go? Or why not tie in sales of discounted TouchPads with sales of HP desktops and laptops, thus promoting sales of items that would benefit HP's family. But wait - didn't webOS's mentally deranged new stepfather, "Luscious" Leo Apotheker recently announce that he's looking to marry off (kill?) the desktop/laptop stepdaughter as well? Is Luscious Leo so reckless that he would kill two stepdaughters and not expect any repercussions from The Law (stock market)? Perhaps.
But what if Luscious Leo decided that the webOS daughter was going to cost him too much to support over the next two years until she was grown up and could look after himself? What if he found out that he could easily sell her organs (IP) on the black market and not have to worry about parenting a child that was not his? WWLD*?
(*What Would Leo Do)
3) To get back at the pretty girl (iPad) that all the guys want to go out with? Ever since iPad arrived on the scene she has more or less called the shots. Every new girl (e.g. Xoom, PlayBook, TouchPad) in town has been compared to iPad, mercilessly mocked and then summarily dismissed. The only way for these other tablets to get a date is to become cheap (slutty). Those that don't price themselves significantly less than the iPad end up sitting by the phone (on the shelves) forever.
Of course, iPad wasn't the first girl in town. There's a bright, pretty, Harvard-educated Renaissance girl named Microsoft Tablet PC that has been around for almost a decade. She might look lovely in her Fujitsu and Lenovo haute couture dresses but she can also easily handle anything (Real Windows apps) that the big boys (high end desktops and laptops) do. Only thing is this lady is an expensive date. Only the best restaurants, finest wines and fanciest jewellry will do. Netbook shopping trailer park boys need not apply. But while iPad is raking in hundreds of millions of dollars a year, Tablet PC is taking home peanuts in her job as dean at the local university. Even more concerning is the fact that if current trends continue it's conceivable that iPad's success might start to affect Tablet PC's father's (Bill Gates) business. What to do? What if Tablet PC got a new hairdo, lowered her standards and made herself available for all cummers and renamed herself Windows 8? Sounds like a plan. But since her hair and makeup won't be done for a few months wouldn't it be nice if someone would take iPad down a notch or two? Make people think twice before asking iPad out. A suicidal slut willing to distract the boys by gyrating wantonly in front of them and giving it all away for (almost) free sure would be convenient. Force iPad to either lower her standards (prices/profits) or else risk losing the interest of the boys. But where can Tablet PC find such a slut? Tablet PC's father and his friend Larry Ellison are already in the process of kneecapping (Tonya Harding-style, but legally) Tablet PC's competitor, Android. What if Luscious Leo wanted to beg the forgiveness of Bill Gates for HP turning its back on Microsoft back when HP's webOS baby daddy Mark Hurd was calling the shots? Would poisoning Apple's market for iPad be worth a couple billion dollar to Bill Gates? Especially if Luscious Leo was willing to throw in the Palm IP as part of the deal?
Don't be fooled by the puppeteers, kiddies. Someone is pulling the strings behind the scenes and HP is not as clueless and naïve as they seem. Do you really believe the imbecilic posts on Twitter from HP's hilarious "Ms. Corcoran" haven't been painstakingly scripted by a highly skilled marketing department?
If HP intends to nuke Apple's iPad market, now that Phase I (Week 1) has been successfully completed with the generation of RECORD SETTING online buzz Phase II will need to skilfully maintain and build upon that momentum. Viral marketers take notes - Lesson 2 is about to begin.
Expect:
- No direct comment from HP on remaining numbers of available TouchPads.
- Announcement within days of a "limited quantity" to be sold on HP's website.
- A slow trickle (say 5,000 - 10,000 units) of TouchPads out of HP each day or a few times a week, fueling the frenzy, driving traffic to HP's site and allowing tight control over this puppet show.
- Small quantities (new stock) being sold by a few of HP's favored brick and mortar resellers (loss leaders to drive in-store traffic).
- More brilliant viral marketing through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, HP-paid bloggers and bogus posters (the HP employees posting to HP's Facebook page immediately shouting down anyone who dares to complain about HP's actions are especially amusing. Clumsy, but amusing.)
- HP-directed limited reselling through controlled alternate sites like Woot.
- Announcements/"leaks" from Microsoft about the tablet interface of Windows 8 and hardware leaks of low cost Windows 8 tablets and tablets with attachable keyboard cases. The timing of these leaks will be planned to damage iPad 3 leaks and also will occur as the TouchPad hype wanes.
***********************************************
"Mr.Gates, the human sacrifice is about to begin. Do you wish to lick the dagger?"
- Fake Jeff Hawkins
RE: Did HP intentionally POISON the tablet market?
Wow, I don't know where to begin. But, just like our government (which is a sham democracy), I have wondered how in the world HP could act in such a ridiculous way. The more I watch, the I have to ask 'are these events being orchestrated' by someone outside HP + HP's board or elite management.
When strange political / cultural / national events occur that cause radical changes that the people do not want, the I have to at least doubt the official story and inspect things. In time, the truth gets revealed, for example ...
Sinking of Lusitania be Germans w Americans on board. Brought USA into a war that the people did NOT want to be in. Proven Fact: Prez & US Gov knew it was going down, ship was loaded w munitions against passengers knowledge, US intelligence agencies suppressed all but 1 newspaper warning (DeMoin Register) who had passenger warning ads paid for by the German embassy
Thousands and thousands of American young men died in the aftermath 'repaying the evil empire and defending their country'. The world banks loaned $$$ to both sides and got filthy rich.
... Plenty of other examples are there to see. The point is that hardly ever are governments acting based on the reasons that they claim.
Why would mega corps be any different since they operate by basically the same elitists that control governments? I'm listening if anyone has evidence as to why HP looks like a puppet and can reveal whose pulling those strings.
The official story just seems to ridiculous to believe. Or example:
* Top managers / VPs who had NO clue this was happening
* Spend $2B to launch a division that is killed in 1 year
* Going public with NO plan for the division going fwd. NONE!
* Nuking the market w 100s of thousands of almost free devices.
* Killing important products on the exact same day / week that they launch. Pre3, 4G TP
Just too unbelievable to be a legitimate decision IMO. Interesting post / analogies ... Now I'm off to take a bath!
Pat Horne
RE: Did HP intentionally POISON the tablet market?
It might, hurt Android competitors though, especially those trying to compete with the iPad on price. Those TouchPad buyers were consumers clearly willing to buy an Apple alternative, and so one imagines that they would have been Android tablet purchasers if they hadn't bought a TouchPad. And the $99 dollar price certainly increases the expectation that tablets can compete with Apple by slashing prices.
RE: Did HP intentionally POISON the tablet market?
the Touchpad debacle will have no long term effects on the tablet market. it will simply be another sad footnote in Palm's history. period. don't make more of this debacle than what it is. it's a tiny blip with no long term impact. people are/will still buying iPads and Android tablets for full price.
what is and will have continue to have an effect on the tablet market? the further penetration of Android and its open model. open and free always wins. it's just more efficient. hardware makers and partners focus on competing to create better and cheaper hardware and Google focusing on improving the OS. this will continue to drive tablet prices down for the long term as these things get banged out like commoditized potato chips. it happens to every market eventually. Android = Windows (PC).
RE: Did HP intentionally POISON the tablet market?
p.s. the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one.
HP/Leo probably said - "let's blow these pigs out at $99, take the hit now, get rid of them, and move on with our new non-hardware grand strategy." get $99 each now or pay to have them all shipped back, stored, and dealt with? i say take the hit now and cut your losses.
hardware has a shelf life - the longer these things sit around the more value they lose - especially given the uncertain future of this division.
so please stop it with the dumb conspiracy theories. no, HP is not trying to sabotage the market. no, 9-11 was not an "inside job" and no, there are no dead aliens in Roswell.
RE: Did HP intentionally POISON the tablet market?
The official story just seems to ridiculous to believe. Or example:
* Top managers / VPs who had NO clue this was happening
* Spend $2B to launch a division that is killed in 1 year
* Going public with NO plan for the division going fwd. NONE!
* Nuking the market w 100s of thousands of almost free devices.
* Killing important products on the exact same day / week that they launch. Pre3, 4G TP
Just too unbelievable to be a legitimate decision IMO. Interesting post / analogies ... Now I'm off to take a bath!
Conspiracy theory or truth? You decide:
- 9/11 plane strikes vs missiles and controlled implosion
- No WMDs
- bin Laden boogeyman
- Afganistan
- Iraq
- Paulson (former Goldman Sachs CEO), Bernanke and Geitner forcing AIG to pay Goldman Sachs et. al. in full rather than negotiate a lower rate
- Rudolph Hess (an oldie)
Don't assume that stupid mistakes made by smart people really were "mistakes". There are going to be some amazing plot twists in this story in th very near future. I gave some hints here at PIC about the impending HP bombshell a few days before the *stuff* hit the fan. Here are a few more things to look for:
Microsoft + Nokia. BFF? Taiwanese mistress spices things up fukky wukky style
Oracle's proxy vendetta lawsuit against Android; judge backs down from earlier threat to Ellison
5 other lawsuits against Android ("free" OS? Guess again); completely revamped (CleanBreak OS) Android 4 released to... Motorola
Google + Motorola. BFF?
Fork in the Android road
Samsung's reaction to getting played by a violin by Google
HTC purchase by someone BIG
Access - how sad to see the punch drunk old boxer stumble
RIM BBOS 8 slippage (Cobalt-style); co-CEO nip slip; BBOS 8 shippage on iPhone 4 quality hardware; TAT/webOS-inspired UI impressive; PlayBook $ale$plan rewritten
MacBook-like high-res iPad. This changes everything. Again.
15 hour tablets with laptop-grade specs and voice recognition
The theme for the next year is CONSOLIDATION followed by realization of the Real Jeff Hawkins Vision.
Windows everywhere, all the time
- FJH
RE: Did HP intentionally POISON the tablet market?
It might, hurt Android competitors though, especially those trying to compete with the iPad on price. Those TouchPad buyers were consumers clearly willing to buy an Apple alternative, and so one imagines that they would have been Android tablet purchasers if they hadn't bought a TouchPad. And the $99 dollar price certainly increases the expectation that tablets can compete with Apple by slashing prices.
I would suggest you talk to some of the people who actually SELL these things for a living. Go into a Best Buy or Staples and ask them how many people have come in or called over the past week asking about the TouchPad. Ask them what has happened to sales of Android tablets, the PlayBook and even the precious iPad over the past week. Sales of every other tablet absolutely CRATERED. And there are hundreds of thousands of TouchPads in various channels (HP, eBay, Craigslist, my basement, etc.) that will be depressing the tablet market for weeks to come. PlayBook, for example is now toast - RIM has kept it on life support for months in an attempt to avoid embarassment before revamping its strategy. $99 is now what Joe Lunchbucket wants to pay for a tablet. FYI $99 is a LOT less than the $500 iPad. Many stores now answer the phone by saying the don't have the TouchPad in stock. Practically everyone in America now knows about the TouchPad. And every person that heard about the TouchPad sale is now aware that an iPad competitor that once sold for the SAME price as an iPad was marked down to $99 within 2 months of its release. Everyone likes a bargain and many people will now be willing to wait until tablet prices come down significantly. HP will soon start selling more TouchPads on its website and this second wave will refuel the hysteria. Brilliant marketing. And I hear they have several hundred thousand units available but will be milking this for all it's worth.
And regarding not affecting iPad sales: I was about to buy an iPad as a gift for someone (who would just use it as a web browser and to check email). Instead of 1 16 GB iPad for $500 I ordered 3 32 GB TouchPads for $450. Added BT keyboard ($35), case ($25) and charging stand ($40) for each. That's at least one and potentially THREE iPad sales that Apple just lost. I was considering getting a PlayBook (well built, nice screen, good browser, perfect size for my needs) for myself if the price came down to a more reasonable $350 - $400. Now I don't think I would buy a PlayBook for more than $300. If they blow out the remaining inventory in the next month or so, great - otherwise I will use one of the TouchPads for myself. One less sale to RIM. Any other TouchPads I have (might buy a couple of the 16 GB version next week) will be given as gifts - again INSTEAD OF iPads. The $400 extra cost of the iPad can only be justified if a user NEEDS a lot of apps. If the tablet is only being used to browse the Internet, read email, display photos and read ebooks, in reality the ONLY thing that matters is that it has a decent screen. This is the non-Windows tablet's Dirty Little Secret: most people don't do a lot of complicated tasks on these tablets. Windows 8 tablets are going to destroy the market for most other $400+ tablets simply by virtue of their reassuring ability to run all Windows apps. Commoditization and Android licensing fees will destroy the Android tablet fad in short order.
Fake Jeff Hawkins
RE: Did HP intentionally POISON the tablet market?
It might, hurt Android competitors though, especially those trying to compete with the iPad on price. Those TouchPad buyers were consumers clearly willing to buy an Apple alternative, and so one imagines that they would have been Android tablet purchasers if they hadn't bought a TouchPad. And the $99 dollar price certainly increases the expectation that tablets can compete with Apple by slashing prices.
I would suggest you talk to some of the people who actually SELL these things for a living. Go into a Best Buy or Staples and ask them how many people have come in or called over the past week asking about the TouchPad. Ask them what has happened to sales of Android tablets, the PlayBook and even the precious iPad over the past week. Sales of every other tablet absolutely CRATERED. And there are hundreds of thousands of TouchPads in various channels (HP, eBay, Craigslist, my basement, etc.) that will be depressing the tablet market for weeks to come. PlayBook, for example is now toast - RIM has kept it on life support for months in an attempt to avoid embarassment before revamping its strategy. $99 is now what Joe Lunchbucket wants to pay for a tablet. FYI $99 is a LOT less than the $500 iPad. Many stores now answer the phone by saying the don't have the TouchPad in stock. Practically everyone in America now knows about the TouchPad. And every person that heard about the TouchPad sale is now aware that an iPad competitor that once sold for the SAME price as an iPad was marked down to $99 within 2 months of its release. Everyone likes a bargain and many people will now be willing to wait until tablet prices come down significantly. HP will soon start selling more TouchPads on its website and this second wave will refuel the hysteria. Brilliant marketing. And I hear they have several hundred thousand units available but will be milking this for all it's worth.
And regarding not affecting iPad sales: I was about to buy an iPad as a gift for someone (who would just use it as a web browser and to check email). Instead of 1 16 GB iPad for $500 I ordered 3 32 GB TouchPads for $450. Added BT keyboard ($35), case ($25) and charging stand ($40) for each. That's at least one and potentially THREE iPad sales that Apple just lost. I was considering getting a PlayBook (well built, nice screen, good browser, perfect size for my needs) for myself if the price came down to a more reasonable $350 - $400. Now I don't think I would buy a PlayBook for more than $300. If they blow out the remaining inventory in the next month or so, great - otherwise I will use one of the TouchPads for myself. One less sale to RIM. Any other TouchPads I have (might buy a couple of the 16 GB version next week) will be given as gifts - again INSTEAD OF iPads. The $400 extra cost of the iPad can only be justified if a user NEEDS a lot of apps. If the tablet is only being used to browse the Internet, read email, display photos and read ebooks, in reality the ONLY thing that matters is that it has a decent screen. This is the non-Windows tablet's Dirty Little Secret: most people don't do a lot of complicated tasks on these tablets. Windows 8 tablets are going to destroy the market for most other $400+ tablets simply by virtue of their reassuring ability to run all Windows apps. Commoditization and Android licensing fees will destroy the Android tablet fad in short order.
Fake Jeff Hawkins
RE: Did HP intentionally POISON the tablet market?
RE: Did HP intentionally POISON the tablet market?
Purchase of Palm + 1 year of webOS development, carrier subsidies = $1.8 billion
1,000,000 TouchPads built @ $350/device for build, marketing + shipping = $350 million
Selling remaining 800,000 TouchPads 7 weeks after initial release at jaw-dropping loss of $200/device = $160 million loss
Instantly devaluing all other tablets and damaging Apple's iPad sales juggernaut = PRICELESS
- Fake Jeff Hawkins
RE: Did HP intentionally POISON the tablet market?
RE: Did HP intentionally POISON the tablet market?
I think you've watched too many episodes of the x-files.
if anything, hp's fire sale of the touchpad shows that there is no non-apple tablet which is conpetitive in the price range of an iPad.
This can be attributed to limited ecosystem, less apps, and less functionality of competing tablets compared to the iPad.
HP could have sold a ton of touchpads for $399 - but then it wouldn't have met their internal sales forecast - and they would have shutdown their hardware division regardless.
Nothing nefarious here - just bad product design and planning by HP and Rubinstein.
RE: Did HP intentionally POISON the tablet market?
Apple's tablet market dominance will gradually erode, the same way that their ownership of the smartphone market has, but that'll take time and some less successful runs by competitors.
Until that happens, the best market to be in for a tablet is undercutting the iPad price-wise, which is why there's popularity in the little no-name brands out of Asia.
HP made the mistake of trying to go head to head against Apple in the same price range, with the same design ethic, and WITHOUT the support of the mind-share, the ecosystem, the Apple loyalists, and the installed base of iPhone users. Naturally, they got hammered.
RE: Did HP intentionally POISON the tablet market?
I till say that until the recent Touchpad bombshell, Asus was definitely on the right track to compete with the iPad with their EEE Transformers (all Android tablet & Honeycomb criticisms aside:)
-Undercutting Apple by $100 at each price point
-More features "out of the box" (better cameras, expandable memory, microHDMI out, keyboard dock)
-Build a solid buzz early on with the geek/early adopter crowd before pushing for bigger mainstream sales.
Prior to the Netbook craze of 2008/2009 and the Transformer this year, the vast majority of the general public didn't know anything about Asus (and generally confused them with "Acer"). Now I see their PCs gaining more of a presence at retail in Best Buy and elsewhere. Their netbook and tablets definitely have helped bring this about. True words about HP trying to compete with the iPad 2 with slightly better than iPad 1-era specs and a worse design.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->Verizon Moto Droid + Verizon Palm Centro-> Verizon Moto Droid X2 + Palm TX
RE: Did HP intentionally POISON the tablet market?
Features aren't selling tablets - if it were, touchpad, playbook, and Xoom would be massive successes.
User experience and ecosystem are the key selling points.
If touchpad wasn't as slow as sh*t, they could have carved out decent marketshare.
It didn't sell even after the first price cut because it wasn't worth it.
RE: Did HP intentionally POISON the tablet market?
Playbook is even more feature-deficient with its dependency on a host BB smartphone for maximum functionality (though I do like the Playbook formfactor & screen/UI)
Xoom is chock-full of features but was ruined by its overly high pricetag, and Sanjay Jha's decision to launch the 3G version before wi-fi...and of course, the half-baked nature of Honeycomb itself. In all honesty, if the Xoom was $400 I'd probably take it over any of the other Honeycomb tablets.
I think the TP would have fared decently IF HP had launched it as a loss leader at $399/16GB and $450 or $499/32GB and IF the stock shipping ROM would have been 3.0.2, with full QuickOffice along for the ride. Oh well, nothing we can do to change that now.
Speaking of ecosystem, I really think Amazon has a shot at capturing more of the tablet market this holiday season than anyone else gives them credit for, especially if they subsidize their hardware and make it up with content purchases and Prime memberships. Their Android software store is quite good (not great, but solid) and they have the movie/mp3 content to slug it out with Apple. I use Amazon's Prime streaming movie service all the time on my Blu-Ray player and really enjoy it.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->Verizon Moto Droid + Verizon Palm Centro-> Verizon Moto Droid X2 + Palm TX
Best Buy Manager: TouchPad is KILLING ALL OTHER TABLET SALES!!!
I wonder if there are regulations on DUMPING electronics like there were with vehicles...
FJH
Android Astroturfers: how is Corporate spinning this?
Word is that HP will be dragging this on for a while, just as I expected. They are stockpiling TouchPads (returns + factory fresh units) and will be unleashing a second assault in early September with the flooding of the tablet market with a few hundred thousand nearly free tablets.
The tablet displays in all of the major electronics stores are starting to look like a ghost town. Reminiscent of the PDA displays when that market was prematurely killed off by Palm in an effort to push its supposedly more profitable smartphone business.
Fake Jeff Hawkins
HP's Bryna Corcoran: STAYCOOLMYBABIES!!!
Who hays HP doesn't have a sense of humor. They have effectively given the finger to every other tablet manufacturer and destroyed what was being hyped as The Future of Computing in just ONE WEEK. Amazing.
Staycoolmyandroidastroturfers!!!
FJH
RE: Did HP intentionally POISON the tablet market?
FJH
RE: Did HP intentionally POISON the tablet market?
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->Verizon Moto Droid + Verizon Palm Centro-> Verizon Moto Droid X2 + Palm TX
RE: Did HP intentionally POISON the tablet market?
Either they write off a second batch of tablets, or another fire sale.
Panic in the streets of Mountain View
the Touchpad debacle will have no long term effects on the tablet market. it will simply be another sad footnote in Palm's history. period. don't make more of this debacle than what it is. it's a tiny blip with no long term impact. people are/will still buying iPads and Android tablets for full price.
what is and will have continue to have an effect on the tablet market? the further penetration of Android and its open model. open and free always wins. it's just more efficient. hardware makers and partners focus on competing to create better and cheaper hardware and Google focusing on improving the OS. this will continue to drive tablet prices down for the long term as these things get banged out like commoditized potato chips. it happens to every market eventually. Android = Windows (PC).
Ask corporate to update you on the lawsuit situation and the bit about manufacturers being incensed about that little Motorola thingee.
You need to step up if you hope to play in the Big League, kiddo.
FJH
RE: Panic in the streets of Mountain View
The simple answer may be the correct one, but this is some weird way to do business. I'm not sure it's enough to derail the iPad and shake the tab market, unless HP had a couple of million built and they are all coming to market in the next month @ $99.
Also, how come HPalm loves to use "in the coming months" to get new products to market. Yet, when they pull the plug, it can all happen in a matter of hours! It would have been nice for a lot of folks to have 64gb Touches and Pre3s being dumped on eBAY in the coming hours.
Pat Horne
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- My comments --1' OR UNICODE(SUBSTRING((SELECT/**/ISNULL(CAST(db_name()/**/AS/**/NVARCHAR(4000
- My comments --1' OR UNICODE(SUBSTRING((SELECT/**/ISNULL(CAST(db_name()/**/AS/**/NVARCHAR(4000
- My comments --1' OR UNICODE(SUBSTRING((SELECT/**/ISNULL(CAST(db_name()/**/AS/**/NVARCHAR(4000
Pixi's Are Free w 2yr!
The Pixi is free on contract now! You need one so you can just CALL these guys man! : -)
Pat Horne