Tag Archives | HP

HP WebOS and Windows Tablets Are Real

Posted by Ed Oswald on August 20, 2010 at 1:51 pm

We now finally have confirmation that HP plans to bring to the market both Windows and WebOS-based tablets, the first time the company has publicly confirmed its plans. The confirmation came from personal systems chief Todd Bradley during the company’s quarterly results call.

HP’s on again/off again Windows Slate would be the first to appear in “the near future.” This would be followed by the release of the WebOS tablet — which some are guessing will be dubbed the PalmPad — early in 2011. There is very little detail as to the specifics of these devices, but at least we can officially put to rest the speculation on the company’s plans, no?

The acquisition of Palm led many to believe that the company would be more apt to sell a tablet based on WebOS simply because it would obviously be cheaper to use in-house code. But the company’s silence on its plans, and even some of its public statements, led some in the media to speculate that it had given up on the Windows Slate altogether.

In any case, all this apparent delay is good for one company in particular, and that’s Apple. It’s iPad continues to be the flagship device of this market segment, and the longer competitors wait, the further it will get out ahead. Time is of the essence here.

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The HP Slate Lives. Maybe. At Least It's Not Dead

Posted by Harry McCracken on July 21, 2010 at 5:27 pm

Engadget is reporting that HP will “make a determination soon on the next steps” for its Windows 7 slate PC–the one that I declared dead a few weeks ago. It’s not entirely clear what that means, but it’s the most the company has said about the product in several months.

I’m not going to eat my words until it’s on the market, or HP at least announces a price and release date…

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HP's MagCloud Service Beefs Up, Lands on the iPad

Posted by Harry McCracken on July 19, 2010 at 3:53 am

Back in 2008, HP Labs launched MagCloud, a print-on-demand service designed to let anyone publish a magazine without much in the way of cost, resources, or risk. Today it’s launching some new features which let publishers use MagCloud for more ambitious creations–and distribute their works in both paper and iPad form.

MagCloud is aimed at amateurs and small-press types, as well as big brands–such as LIFE magazine–which want to produce special issues or bring old ones back into print. (LIFE offers a replica of its 1969 Woodstock issue.) It does for magazines what Lulu.com does for books: make it feasible to print and sell attractive color publications in quantities as small as one copy. Publishers upload their magazines in PDF form; whenever someone orders an issue, HP has one of a number of independent fulfillment centers print it using a high-speed HP Indigo printer, then ship it to the customer.

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HP Windows 7 Slate: It's Alive?

Posted by Jared Newman on July 13, 2010 at 1:07 pm

HP still hasn’t said boo about its slate plans since the company acquired Palm, and Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer didn’t mention HP during his Worldwide Partners Conference keynote this week, when talking about Windows 7 slate PCs.

So why was HP listed as one of many companies releasing Windows 7 slates this year?

The image here was screengrabbed from the live feed of Ballmer’s keynote, and tipped to Engadget over Twitter. Microsoft doesn’t have the recordings of its keynotes online yet, so I can’t validate this myself. If it’s accurate — and not just an oversight by whoever put together Ballmer’s keynote slides — it opens up a couple possibilities:

On one hand, perhaps the HP Windows slate is not dead, as rumored and generally suspected due to HP’s silence on the matter. Maybe HP just went back to the drawing board after seeing what the iPad could do, or put the Windows 7 slate on the backburner to fast-track a WebOS tablet.

On the other hand, the images above Microsoft’s list of partners includes a swiveling tablet with a keyboard. HP has already built one of those, running Windows 7, the Touchsmart tm2. I wouldn’t be shocked if HP updated that laptop in the fall, and Microsoft called it a slate for the sake of promoting Windows 7’s touch-friendliness.

In any case, with more than 20 companies building Windows 7 slates this year, debating the mortality of an HP entrant is moot. The idea was novel when HP was the only major company openly talking about an iPad competitor, but that’s hardly the case anymore. I’d be more interested to hear about a WebOS tablet at this point; at least it’ll stand out from the crowd.

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HP's Windows Slate PC: Not Officially Dead, But Dead

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 17, 2010 at 8:35 am

I’m at The Big Money’s Untethered conference–an event about tablets and the future of publishing–in New York. One of the speakers this morning was Phil McKinney, CTO of HP’s Personal Systems Group. The Big Money’s James Ledbetter interviewed him about tablets, and he talked about the downsides of using existing operating systems for new types of devices. (He didn’t mention Windows explicitly, but I’m pretty sure he wasn’t talking about OS/2.) He also extolled the virtues of WebOS, which HP will own assuming its acquisition of Palm goes through.

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HP's ePrint: Print From Devices With No Printing Support

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 7, 2010 at 6:30 am

Major development this morning: The iPad can finally print! But this breakthrough isn’t being unveiled at Apple’s WWDC keynote. Apple can’t take any credit for it, either–and actually, the news also involves the iPhone, Android phones, BlackBerrys, other smartphones, and other devices that do e-mail and file attachments.

This Monday-morning eye-opener is being announced by HP printing honcho V.J. Joshi at an event in New York. It’s a new feature called ePrint that HP is building into a trio of all-in-one printers. The goal is audacious: enable printing from gadgets that have no built-in support for printing, without requiring so much as installing an app. It’s a logical one for HP to pursue, given that devices that can’t print can’t help consumers use up ink. And the way HP did it is surprisingly simple: It built drivers into the printers themselves, and gave them Wi-Fi networking and e-mail addresses.

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