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The death of WebOS

maflynn said:
No one is arguing that HP is large. The question is can they properly market a tablet to entice consumers and enterprise customers to embrace it. So far the answer has been no. They've largely failed at selling the Pre as well so a worldwide distribution channel doesn't help anyone when customers choose another product.
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So far, but isn't it a bit early to judge the enterprise market? Look how slow the adoption for Win7 is, or how an outdated company like RIM can still have such a huge footprint within company issued phones. I'm not saying WebOS will or won't be successful in business, but because of the HP name (and the discounts HP does offer to big customers) then people will be at least willing to listen.
 
No when we see whole sale embracing of the iPad in the enterprise.
 
nfl46 said:
What needs to happens is, HP should lower the price to $299. This should be the permanent price of device. They should take a loss, or maybe break even on this first generation device.
...
Price it at $299 at Best Buy & force people to want to pick one up. At that price, people would want one.
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Why make one at all if they cannot make money off selling it? By setting the price at $299, they are setting the expectation that the subsequent generations will be priced at $299 as well, which almost eliminates any chance of making profit on the tablet.

It's unfortunate to see the HP tablet fail so badly as I like WebOS. I hope HP can find another way to make WebOS a viable alternative to iOS and Android.
 
radiogoober said:
Well it seems as though we can consider the HP TouchPad dead. WebOS is dead.
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some early morning humor

shameless copied from Monty Python and the Holy Grail said:
HP Touch Pad: I'm not dead.
Dead Collector: What?
Large Man: Nothing. There's your ninepence.
HP Touch Pad: I'm not dead.
Dead Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Large Man: Yes he is.
HP Touch Pad: I'm not.
Dead Collector: He isn't.
Large Man: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
HP Touch Pad: I'm getting better.
Large Man: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
Dead Collector: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
HP Touch Pad: I don't want to go on the cart.
Large Man: Oh, don't be such a baby.
Dead Collector: I can't take him.
HP Touch Pad: I feel fine.
Large Man: Oh, do me a favor.
Dead Collector: I can't.
Large Man: Well, can you hang around for a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
Dead Collector: I promised I'd be at the Robinsons'. They've lost nine today.
Large Man: Well, when's your next round?
Dead Collector: Thursday.
HP Touch Pad: I think I'll go for a walk.
Large Man: You're not fooling anyone, you know. Isn't there anything you could do?
HP Touch Pad: I feel happy. I feel happy.
[Dead Collector glances up and down the street furtively, then silences the Touch Pad with his a whack of his club]
Large Man: Ah, thank you very much.
Dead Collector: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
Large Man: Right.
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sorry I couldn't resist
 
I find it sad that Palm and webOS haven't been as commercially successful as they deserve to be. The Pre was amazing, the only real all-round competitor to the iPhone as far as I'm concerned. I still believe it to be better than all the Android phones in terms of user experience.
 
palpatine said:
There are strengths and weaknesses in any market position. Ask Sony (what happened to their dominance in the mobile music player market?), ask Windows (what happened to IE's dominance), ask Yahoo (what happened to their search dominance), etc.

As we have seen with the smart phone market (that Apple dominated only a short time ago), it is possible to gain significant market share even if you are years behind in development. For tablets, all Google + hardware manufacturers have to do is show that they have a viable product at a lower price. They have got pretty good hardware (equivalent to the PC v Apple situation) and so-so OS, but (as you said) they lack the apps. It will come and Apple will lose huge chunks of its market share.

But, if Apple is smart (and I think they are), they will have already moved on to something else, and I bet they find a way to bring along a bunch of the customers they have managed to get tied into their ecosystem. INTEGRATION is the key, not the tablet.

Who cares about the iPad, when you have people hooked into all of your product lines?

People that point to iPhone sales, iPad sales, or any other single product are missing the point. Even if HP gobbled up a bunch of customers, they've got nothing else to offer. Neither does Android. The so-called "halo" effect with Apple is pretty powerful, and at this point I don't see any competitors (Sony and others have tried) who can come close to matching them in this regard. In other words, they can afford to lose market share in any line, and it won't have a significant impact on sales.
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All good points. As usual. But I think there's a qualification that doesn't contradict your analysis; it just extends it a bit.

There is a tendency to focus exclusively on the mass consumer market without reference to other niche markets. Consider, for example, laptop business users. Lenovo has just introduced two tablets, both Android-based. One is a mass consumer device, an extension of their IdeaPad line. Nothing very exciting there. It looks a lot like the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 and offers little in the way of differentiating itself.

On the other hand, Lenovo will begin selling their "ThinkPad Tablet" on August 23. This model will feature multiple USB ports, better handwriting hardware, and docking/keyboard station along with a boatload of loaded software (e.g. Documents to Go, multiple virtual keyboard options, etc.)

Will it be an iPad killer? Of course, not. But Lenovo enjoys much of the same customer loyalty among business users that Apple enjoys in the mass consumer market. A true Lenovo-quality keyboard alone will attract customers. Pressure sensitive touch features will improve the user experience when a user writes/draws on the screen. In short, it's likely to be a very attractive option for those whose interest in a tablet is to extend their PC experience. (And just to cover their bets, Lenovo is also committed to a Windows tablet.)

The point is that a very profitable tablet business can be built by a manufacturer with a strong corporate sales base. That market is often ignored by the mass consumer technology press. But it remains a large and important market segment.
 
I tried it out at Best Buy recently and find that it isn't as responsive as the iPad. That was the biggest turn off, if it can't impress me the second I touch it, then obviously I wouldn't buy it if I the iPad is priced similar. However, if they lower the price to about 250-300, then I wouldn't mind buying one just to try it out. An inferior product should have an inferior price.

And also, I think HP is marketing it wrong. I don't care how celebrities use the tablet. The iPad's ad of appealing to the common person is the right approach. I just loved the recent commercial of "We still read books, share pics, etc., but how we do it will never be the same". Awesome message (so good that I still remember it). Compare that to remembering Manny Pacquiao, in which the things I remember is him being in Congress, singing, beating a bigger boxer, etc. nothing of which relates to the tablet. And I think that commercial sold Manny more than it did the Touchpad.
 
Way too early to declare anyone dead.

I think Best Buy was either mislead by HP on anticipated demand, or that someone made a major mistake and is trying to clean up after it. If Best Buy feels they were mislead by information provided by HP, it might have some ground to stand on in requesting a return of unsold product. On the other hand, it may have been Best Buy's drive to get volume pricing that lead them to over-buy.

Anyway, that point is moot. First generation tablet products generally have a lot of issues. Apple's first product had no App support for a year, no cut/paste, a a long list of issues. (I'm considering the original iPhone as Apple's first "tablet" attempt.) The iPad came only after multiple generations and refinements of the iPhone, and iPod Touch line.

The other manufacturers need to get some more market and product expertise to nail this category.

I think webOS is a great OS. The current version (webOS 3.x) is already better than Android, and in many areas, better than iOS 4.x.

I'm sure HP hasn't thrown in the towel. They are getting significant customer input right now. That's going to result in better products in the future.

As another poster pointed out, market leaders need to be vigilant, leadership changes hands frequently. Otherwise, we'd all be using WordStar and Visicalc on our CP/M machines and looking things up on Lycos with our NetScape browsers.
 
Don Kosak said:
Way too early to declare anyone dead.

I think Best Buy was either mislead by HP on anticipated demand, or that someone made a major mistake and is trying to clean up after it. If Best Buy feels they were mislead by information provided by HP, it might have some ground to stand on in requesting a return of unsold product. On the other hand, it may have been Best Buy's drive to get volume pricing that lead them to over-buy.
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It's not too early.Yes, Best Buy was mislead. They were told there would be at least "some" demand for the HP TouchPad, and there was none.

Don Kosak said:
Anyway, that point is moot. First generation tablet products generally have a lot of issues. Apple's first product had no App support for a year, no cut/paste, a a long list of issues. (I'm considering the original iPhone as Apple's first "tablet" attempt.) The iPad came only after multiple generations and refinements of the iPhone, and iPod Touch line.
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This is so foolish it's not worth my wasting my time to reply.
 
radiogoober said:
It's not too early.Yes, Best Buy was mislead. They were told there would be at least "some" demand for the HP TouchPad, and there was none.



This is so foolish it's not worth my wasting my time to reply.
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haha. It wasn't good reading was it. Iphone the 1st tablet attemp!? wow.
 
it's funny I was at Best Buy on the weekend, and all the tablets are bunched together on one display, and the iPad has it own display away from the crowd of tablets, it makes it seen more special, which it is. :D
 
maflynn said:
No when we see whole sale embracing of the iPad in the enterprise.
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"Embracing"? Most IT departments DONT want to manage more OS's so the demand for iOS from end users is far greater than the willingness of corporate integration.

The enterprise market is huge and if they can't even pick XP vs 7 yet then they're far from picking any sort of sides on which gimmicky tablet they want to start putting in users hands.
 
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Mac.World said:
Apparently, surveys keeping pointing out it's iPad or nothing: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-20093468-94/its-ipad-or-nothing-survey-says/
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This isn't the iPhone ecosystem where when it was released it was carrier specific and forced those who didn't like or want AT&T to go to Android and basically created that market. I still feel that if Apple would had been less carrier specific from the start, or at least earlier, the Android market never would have took off in the first place.

The major driving factor for people NOT to go to iPad now is that they simply just don't like Apple and their closed environment or want Flash, which is just isn't a big driver.

I think the iPad ecosystem is more equivalent to the iPod then the iPhone, where the iPod became "iPod or nothing".
 
jonrando said:
webOS just lacks a decent app store, that's the only issue.
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Thats pretty huge problem to call "the only issue".

Plus, don't forget it also has cheap plastics, lacks a 2nd camera and is pretty thick. I really think WebOS has potential but it has NEVER been on good hardware.
 
urkel said:
Thats pretty huge problem to call "the only issue".

Plus, don't forget it also has cheap plastics, lacks a 2nd camera and is pretty thick. I really think WebOS has potential but it has NEVER been on good hardware.
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I found lack of camera and no ports for that thickness to be the biggest turn offs. As well, the plastic was a finger print magnet.
 
Sad - "more competition needed" says Apple fanboy

I am a total Apple fanboy when it comes to using their products.

AND

I desperately want to see viable and sustained competition that pushes Apple to keep doing what it does well...

... because that will be good for me in the long run too ...
 
The funny thing is that WebOS is so elegantly designed, it gives a glimpse of how tablets can truly replace laptops or desktops. HP however, instead of refining it, released it half-baked with the expectation that users will be okay with waiting for patches. That sounds so old-school.
 
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