This is interesting, according to Engadget HP’s much publicised Windows 7 based state tablet isn’t in fact dead as has been reported.
Personally I think this is great news. I’m a long term fan of the slate having had one of HP’s old slates the TC1100 for years. It’s a great bit of kit but Win7 really challenges its 2004 specs.
According to Engadget HP are planning to launch the new tablet later this year targeted at the enterprise market. This makes a lot of sense to me. The iPad has the consumer world all wrapped up but in business (currently) it’s more of a novelty to anyone that needs to do more than email. A Win7 based tablet that has a pen as well as touch and can run apps like OneNote would be very welcome.
What’s more it gives HP a good product on which to take some market share from Motion Computing, who have been doing quite well selling Windows based slate tablets into industries like healthcare and engineering.
Of course there have also been rumours of a HP tablet based on Palms WebOS, which of course HP now owns. While that would definitely be an option in the consumer world I’m not sure businesses would find it all that attractive. The reason I say this is that currently WebOS has next to no security built into the OS, at least none that is compatible with the Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) security policies used by Microsoft and Google (see this article for more info). So in that sense a twin platform might make good sense for HP.
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