HP restarts tablet manufacturing
SHANGHAI : Hewlett-Packard (HP) has announced it will resume production of consumer tablets but says it will run them on Microsoft's new Windows 8 operating system. — The world's largest technology firm suspended its touchPad WebOS tablet production line last year on poor sales.
Context & Ripple Effects
HP has cycled through tablet operating systems before settling here: it killed a Windows 7 tablet project back in 2010, tabled an Android effort that same year (per Digital Daily's report), bet on webOS via Palm, then suspended the poorly selling TouchPad line in 2011. The November 2011 $699 Slate 2 was a tentative first step back onto Windows, and a June 2011 report had already flagged that HP, after spurning Android, might offer Windows 8 tablets — this announcement makes that pivot official.
The story travelled unusually widely for an OEM product decision: pickups at CNET, PC Magazine, VentureBeat, Business Insider, MacRumors, webOS Nation and Liliputing all landed around the same date, reflecting how much weight the market puts on whether a top-tier PC maker lines up behind Microsoft's unlaunched OS.
First-order effects
- HP rejoins the consumer tablet market as a launch partner for Microsoft's Windows 8, replacing the dead webOS TouchPad line with machines built around someone else's OS.
- Microsoft gains one of the world's largest PC manufacturers as committed Windows 8 tablet hardware, strengthening the OS's credibility against iPad and Android slates before it ships.
Second-order effects
- Rival PC makers are pushed to show comparable Windows 8 tablet roadmaps so they aren't the only holdouts when Microsoft's new platform launches.
- Component and assembly partners in the Shanghai-region supply chain see tablet volumes return under an HP banner, but now tied to Microsoft's launch timetable rather than HP's own software cycle.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points toward x86 tablet supply consolidating around a single Microsoft-led platform, with former OS experimenters like HP trading software differentiation for scale economics.
- If Windows 8 tablets sell, the industry structure shifts toward a two-camp tablet market — Apple/Google versus a broad Windows OEM coalition — rather than each vendor running its own mobile OS.
The trend: Major PC vendors are abandoning proprietary tablet OS experiments and consolidating behind Microsoft's Windows 8 as their route back into the tablet market.