HP: ‘Touchpad will be better than number one’ tablet
HP talks up forthcoming Touchpad tablet ahead of European launch later in the year and announces first app partners — HP will emulate its PC market success in the tablet world when it launches the Touchpad over the summer, the company's European head Eric Cador has claimed.
Context & Ripple Effects
HP has been telegraphing this launch since February, when it previewed webOS 3.0 at its Think Beyond event and was reported to be targeting an April sales start (WebOS 3.0-based TouchPad slated for April); since then a webOS 3.0 beta emulator leaked in April, giving developers an early look at the OS before any hardware shipped.
The May positioning rounds out the commercial picture: HP confirmed its first TouchPad app partners, priced the 32GB model at $599, and locked in Wal-Mart as a retail carrier — all while European head Eric Cador stakes the pitch on HP repeating in tablets what it did in PCs, claiming the device will beat the number-one tablet.
First-order effects
- At $599 for the 32GB model, HP prices the TouchPad at parity with the category leader rather than undercutting it, making Cador's 'better than number one' claim the load-bearing argument at checkout.
- Wal-Mart shelf space and the announced app partners give the TouchPad mainstream US distribution and a minimum viable app catalog on day one — addressing the two gaps that have sunk earlier iPad challengers.
Second-order effects
- Android tablet vendors now face a rival backed by HP's PC-scale manufacturing and retail relationships rather than another startup, pressuring them to differentiate on content and services instead of spec sheets.
- Developers weighing tablet platforms get a third credible buyer of their attention alongside iOS and Android, raising the bidding for launch-window exclusives and partner deals like the ones HP just announced.
Third-order effects
- If HP's bet holds, the tablet market consolidates around platforms that pair hardware scale with an app store, and 'better than number one' claims get tested by price cuts and retail muscle rather than features.
- If it does not hold, HP's PC-style playbook — premium pricing, big-box distribution, own OS — becomes the cautionary case for every hardware maker considering a proprietary tablet platform, and pressure builds toward licensing someone else's OS instead.
The trend: Tablet competition in 2011 is shifting from device-by-device hardware launches to a platform war decided by app ecosystems, pricing power, and retail scale — exactly the contest HP is entering with the TouchPad.