Sam Oliver
Starting Friday and through the weekend, HP is selling its TouchPad for $399.99 for the 16GB model, and $499.99 for the 32GB capacity. The prices, available through HP and at all major retailers, are with a $100 instant rebate.
The PC maker has not shed any light on sales of its tablet, but the discount, which undercuts Apple's iPad by $100, comes soon after the July 1 launch of the hardware, suggested it has gotten off to a slow start.
The weekend sale is being pushed in concert with a TV campaign advertising the limited-time price. And TouchPad is even cheaper at Amazon-owned deal-a-day site woot.com, where the tablet is being sold for $379.99 on Friday only.
When it debuted last month, the TouchPad was met with mediocre reviews that praised the device for its hardware design, but felt the webOS software powering it was lacking. While reviewers were impressed with the TouchPad's looks, they took issue with the tablet's weight, bugs and lack of applications.
Those reviews prompted former Palm Chief Executive and current HP executive Jon Rubinstein to send a letter to employees in which he suggested that media criticism of its webOS operating system on the TouchPad is similar to complaints reviewers had with early versions of Mac OS X. Those early reviews characterized Apple's software as "sluggish," without any "quality apps," and "just not making sense."
"It's hard to believe those statements described Mac OS X — a platform that would go on to change the landscape of Silicon Valley in ways that no one could have imagined," Rubinstein wrote, highlighting what he sees as the "potential for greatness" in webOS.
HP executives have qualified the TouchPad's position in the market, saying they don't expect the first-generation device to dethrone Apple's market-leading iPad. Last quarter, Apple sold a record 9.25 million iPads.
Competitors have scrambled to attempt to replicate the success Apple found on the market almost immediately with the iPad. But sales of devices like the RIM PlayBook and Samsung Galaxy Tab have failed to compete with the iPad, which was said in May by Nielsen to control 82 percent of the tablet market in the U.S.
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142 Comments
The PC maker has not shed any light on sales of its tablet....
Next step: shed tablet.
Not good.
HP is trying to buy some market share. Not a bad short-term strategy if you can afford it. Could help in the long run to get it into more peoples' hands today.
They could even make a profit on it with sales of peripherals. Discount the TouchPad, but charge full list price for the charging station, etc.
These are the same people that criticize Apple as a niche company that has no clue about computing technology. Always closely coddling Microsoft as if they are some kind of all knowing god, welcome to the real HP. now keep trying to play catchup to Apple, which is 10 years ahead of you all. Because all of you chose to build your platforms on Microsoft technology while Mac os X was evolving and paving a new path.
HP is trying to buy some market share. Not a bad short-term strategy if you can afford it. Could help in the long run to get it into more peoples' hands today.
They could even make a profit on it with sales of peripherals. Discount the TouchPad, but charge full list price for the charging station, etc.
HP is not a company with vision or long term plans, they are based on a get rich quick mentality, culture & business model, they have no hopes of success against Apple.