HP Tablet (TouchPad) Being Liquidated at BestBuy

HP Tablet Products Dissapointed
I’m still kind of shocked about Hewlett-Packard Co.’s decision to exit the smartphone and paper arena.
It’s unclear as to what will happen to its computer business, as a separate company for personal is being considered. Then its focus would be on helping customers manage information, along with printing, servers, storage and a few other services. But even that forward-looking explanation is a tiny murky.
HP’s declaration came with a lot of huge words being tossed about, such as “strategic alternatives” and “application ecosystems.”

As you read further into the announcement, you’ll run crossways “exploration of the separation.”
The one thing I do comprehend is that all the transactions should be complete in about 12-18 months.
As for the other explanations, the ideal I can figure is that when the going got tough in the smartphone and paper market, the tough got gone.

HP announced last week that it is pulling out of the webOS market and focusing exclusively on enterprise services as well as hardware sales. That meant the liquidation of its TouchPad, which is being offered online and at retailers like Best Buy starting at $99 (16GB Wi-Fi).

HP TouchPad are being snapped up quickly thanks to fire sale prices, and they may be hard to find. Just 2 days after announcing it will discontinue operations for WebOS devices, HP has dropped the price of its HP TouchPad to a bargain basement $99 for the Wi-Fi only 16GB device and $149 for the 32GB version.

HP TouchPad is finally enjoying a sales boom. All it took to move the previously slow-selling HPtablet was a $99 price point.

The HP TouchPad’s dramatic drop — from a starting price of $499.99, to $399.99, to $99.99 — hit Canada on Friday, resulting in “sold out” listings on BestBuy Canada’s website.

Now what?
The news of HP’s new direction is even worse for paper customers who bought the HP TouchPad tablet.
I was on standby for the FedEx truck to leave a TouchPad for a column review, but it’s no use looking out the window now.
The only deliveries will probably be the TouchPads going back to the vendors for those who have bought them – and can send them back.
I should have known something was brewing with HP and the TouchPad when the price was dropped by $100 a couple of weeks ago.

Although the TouchPad arrived late in the paper space around July 1, I thought it had a fighting chance with the slick webOS platform and the incorporated synergy between the other HP devices, such as the Pre 3 and Veer.
But I guess HP thought differently after looking around at the iPad and all the Android tablets in the market.
The BlackBerry PlayBook also beat the TouchPad out the door by a couple of months.
So, it’s so long to HP tablets and smartphones, but it didn’t take long for something else to show up.
2 of guys from T-Mobile USA Inc. dropped off the LG G-Slate paper a few days ago.

The G-Slate is T-Mobile’s first 4G Android paper and is running the Honeycomb operating system.
It’s a doozy, with the capability to record 3D and HD video.
So, HP’s exit from smartphone, HP paper arena disappointing for more fans.

Other retailers — such as Amazon, Fry’s Electronics, NewEgg — haven’t taken up the price drop as of Saturday morning, but such a move could happen. According to SlickDeals, Staples is selling the HP TouchPad for $99.99 and $149.99 in-store only.

While the sellouts are popping up at many online retailers, it’s not clear if the same demand is taking place in stores as well. So for those out and about shopping today, let us know what you’re seeing in the comments.

And as always, sound off in the comments and let us know what you think of all this.

A few commenters from an earlier Technology blog post on the Canadian price cuts have asked why someone would want to buy a device that HP will no longer support or produce, or an operating system that has so far failed to attract developers to build up an app catalog.

Other commenters took a different view, seeing $99.99 as a bargain for a device so good at simple computing tasks such as surfing the Web and checking email.