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HP Kills ARM-based Windows Tablet, Likely Thanks To Microsoft Surface
MojoKid writes "That didn't take long. HP has publicly confirmed that it has cancelled plans to bring a Windows RT (aka Windows on ARM) tablet to market in time for the Windows 8 debut. The company has decided to focus on its x86 customer base instead. HP spokesperson Marlene Somsak has said, 'The decision was influenced by input from our customers. The robust and established ecosystem of x86 applications provides the best customer experience at this time and in the immediate future.' Sources at HP have confirmed that Microsoft's Surface unveil last week was a huge factor in this decision. HP isn't willing to go head to head with Microsoft when it comes to launching new, unproven products. Abandoning x86 is impossible, but dropping Windows ARM is a way for the computer manufacturer to signal its supreme displeasure without unduly risking market share. It also increases the burden on Surface itself. If other OEMs follow suit, MS could find itself as the only vendor selling ARM-based W8 tablets."
HP's track record with tablets is not all that impressive, but this is a big blow to Windows 8... which frankly *only* makes sense on a tablet unless there is a de-metrofication project going on in the skunkworks.
Having said that.. HP could jump onto Android or even attempt to bring some zombified version of WebOS back from the dead using the ARM platform.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
If only HP had its own OS it could put on those tablets. They wouldn't be relaint on MicroSoft and possibly could sell dozens of them.
Well... I'm actually more surprised that HP refuses to take the lead on ANY consumer-related goods. Or enterprise products/services, for that matter.
Man, I thought for a while that HP might be able to turn it around and get back to its roots of being a kick-ass engineering company, but it's pretty obvious that those days are now gone. I'm pretty sure that even the old engineering fogeys who might have been able to tell the yung'uns about what HP culture was like before have left the ship. At this point, it's just a large computer manufacturing company like Dell and Acer, with some enterprise big iron and consulting thrown in.
Sad to see them go.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
The only person Ballmer can outfox is Ballmer. Bold prediction here: Surface will never see production. Microsoft is late to the party and unable to buy or bully their competition. Unless they are willing to take huge losses (as with the Xbox) to establish some foothold and heavily subsidize an as yet unknown killer-app the Surface will just be Zune v2 (nice specs, terminally uncool, doomed to a protracted and very public death).
Apple's: $600
iPad 2 is 400$ and iPad 3 is 500$.
You fail to mention that this is the base-bottom price. The high-end iPad (64GB storage, 3G connectivity) costs $830 - and this is without any accessories, not even a cover. Here's the way I see it, and I say this without any bias: The iPad is going to face very stiff competition at two ends of the spectrum.
At the low end, it will start facing serious competition from $200-$300 Android 4.0 and 4.1 tablets, many of which have extremely good screens, construction quality, and an equally good number of apps in the Android app store. Look at the recently announced Nexus 7. It has an IPS display, similar pixel density as the iPad3, 8hr battery life, Tegra3 CPU, and is priced at an extremely competitive $200. And it runs Android 4.1 Jellybean which is quite slick based on initial reviews.
At the high end, it will start facing competition from ultrabooks and x86 based Win8 Pro tablets. If you are already paying $900 for a media consumption device that lacks the capability of running heavy-weight apps, you might as well pay a hundred bucks more and get an ultrabook or an x86 tablet that can do everything and will give you a viable laptop replacement alternative. What would be a very interesting would be a dual core Intel Medfield (Clover Trail?) Surface tablet or even a non-Surface tablet. It would run all your x86 and Windows apps, give you the same battery life and standby life as an ARM chip, and would outperform the best ARM chip in the market. Core for core, the 1.6Ghz single core Medfield that is shipping with the Lava phone is head to head with the much touted Tegra 3 or Exynos or Snapdragon, and has very similar power consumption and standby numbers. The only place they will lag is in the graphics horsepower, which is probably why you will mostly see 1366x768 screen res. i3/i5 tablets would not be very viable as their power consumption is still too high - although I'm sure this won't stop big vendors from coming out with ridiculously heavy Win8 Pro i3/i5 tablets with cooling vents and what-not.
Anyway, just my thoughts. I do think that HP is correct in not supporting Win8 RT - it cannot carve our a niche for itself when it is getting hammered by Win8/x86 on one end, and Android/iOS/ARM on the other.