HP plans another swing at tablet market

Hewlett-Packard will take another shot at Apple's iPad with the discharge late this year of a tablet computer geared for work in place of play, chief executive Meg Whitman said yesterday.

The tablet will run on Microsoft Windows 8 software and tackle iPad inside the workplace, where HP will bank on its reputation and its strengths in providing gear and services to businesses, in line with Whitman.

"It isn't really a tablet market, it's an iPad market," Whitman said during an on-stage chat before a small gathering of entrepreneurs and bosses at a Wall Street Journal Viewpoints West gathering in Silicon Valley.

"The iPad is terrific; i've got one," she continued. "i take advantage of it to read books or watch TV but i do not use it to essentially get work done."

HP will release by Christmas a brand new tablet tailored for security, productivity and business network compatibility, said Whitman, who took over because the California-based technology titan's chief executive five months ago.

"There's a big trend to BYOD to work; that is all well and good until there's a security breach," she said, relating people increasing bringing their very own devices similar to iPhones or iPads to apply at the job.

"We'll provide another."

A blockbuster hit with people of their personal lives, iPads has been gaining traction in workplaces.

HP made a gloomy initial foray into the tablet market last year with a TouchPad powered by webOS mobile operating system software it acquired as section of its US$1.2 billion purchase of Palm in 2010.

Citing disappointing sales, HP decided to discontinue the TouchPad just seven weeks after it hit the market.

HP later promised to make webOS available to the open source community by September, meaning that developers anywhere will be ready to tinker with it as they wished and it'd be available for anyone to apply at no cost.

The Palo Alto, California-based HP abandoned plans to make smartphones and tablet computers using the platform.

HP's first tablet to tackle iPad "was not a cheerful ending," admitted Whitman.

- AFP