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HP falls victim to the tablet wars

• 27/08/11
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It’s been an interesting time in the technology sector over the past couple of weeks, with HP saying that it is now planning to sell off its computer hardware divisions including the division that was making the “TouchPad” tablet based on the Palm webOS operating system. Retailers are trying to dump their remaining stock of TouchPads at Crazy Eddie pricing. Don’t get me wrong, I thought that HP might have had a winner on their hands with their newly acquired webOS. However, now that I think about it, I wouldn’t have bought one. Why?  Because an effective tablet is more than its hardware, it needs a real developer community and we were never going to get this with a TouchPad.

I think you can say the same thing about RIM and its PlayBook. I just don’t see a real future for this tablet as it faces the same fundamental problems as HP with the TouchPad. There’s no real development community for this device. Having excellent hardware is not good enough anymore if you going to really compete in this market. What you need is an active and growing independent development community! It seemed no developer was willing to spend the money or time on anything but android or Apple products.

So who are the real winners in the game of the tablet wars? Obviously, Apple is the big winner with itsiPad2,and closing in on them is Google Android and its hosts of tablet partners. It will be really interesting to see what Google does with the purchase off Motorola Mobility for 12.5 billion.

 At the present moment there are a number of phones and tablet manufactures using Google’s Android operating system. This, in many ways is a good thing for Google but it also has an ugly side. The good side is that you have an army of different hardware manufactures using their operating system; unfortunately they have also adapted it and wrapped their own skins on the devices and other what they call “improvements”.

The ugly side of all of this is that in the end users can have a very different fundamental experience of the Android operating system depending on the hardware they choose.

Compare this to the user experience of the iPad. All users have the same experience; the only difference is how the tablet is being used. Will Google be tempted to again build their own hardware and sell it direct to it users? Probably not, being that when they attempted to do this the last time it wasn't all that successful. So why did Google buy Motorola? Because of the patent portfolio that came with the purchase. See the whole mobile phone and tablet industry has got itself into a really nasty lawsuit exchange, and Google was looking increasingly vulnerable to legal attacks by it industrial competitors. With the buying of Motorola, Google has enormously strengthened it legal position with its new patent library.

One of the new players in the tablet sector is Amazon and their plan for their own brand of tablet.Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos has openly hinted at Amazon producing an in house tablet in the next couple of Months. Will it be as successful as the Kindle?

I haven't even touched what Microsoft seems to be planning in the action world of the tablet! Will they come out with something new or will they too fall victim to the tablet wars? We will just have to wait and see.

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