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TouchPad scores touchdown


Johannesburg, 10 Feb 2011

Hewlett-Packard (HP), the world's largest PC maker, showcased its first stab at the tablet market last night, with the unveiling of its TouchPad, which will be released mid-year.

This announcement has been a long time coming, since HP's $1.2 billion buyout of Palm, a handheld device pioneer, early last year.

Shaped almost exactly like the iPad, the new tablet runs off Palm's WebOS operating system, and features a dual-core Qualcomm chip, supports video calling and Adobe Flash software. According to HP, the TouchPad will be priced “competitively”.

"We're embarking on a new era of WebOS with the goal of linking a wide family of HP products through the best mobile experience available," says HP.

At the same event, HP announced its release of two new smartphones, the Veer and the Pre3, both based on the Palm WebOS software.

“Each product plays a distinct role in the growing WebOS family, designed to meet the varying needs of customers in a rapidly evolving mobile landscape.”

Keeping in touch

The TouchPad will be shipped with HP's own Beats audio engine, Touch-to-Share (a feature that lets users easily transfer a Web site, document, song, text or call between the phone and tablet by tapping the two devices together) and a reliance on the cloud.

HP also outlined some of the partnerships that will bring content to the new devices. Amazon will provide a new tablet-friendly Kindle app that will provide access to all of the more than 810 000 books that are available in the Kindle Store, free of charge.

Time will also sell subscriptions to magazines such as Sport Illustrated, People and Time for the TouchPad.

HP also said it wanted to bring the WebOS platform to multiple devices, including PCs, later in the year. It said WebOS will "complement" Microsoft's Windows software on PCs, rather than displace it, but declined to provide specifics.

Doing it all at once

“The power of WebOS true multitasking lets you have multiple applications running at the same time. WebOS shows you your activities in the form of cards, not a sea of application icons on numerous home screens,” says HP.

“This helps you do all the things you want to do, all at once, so you can listen to music, update your status on Facebook, read e-mail and chat on IM at the same time.”

TouchPad also features a WebOS communication suite powered by HP Synergy. “It's a complete solution, including e-mail, instant messaging, contacts, calendar, videos and a front-facing camera for video calling. Connected photo albums make it easy to share and view your pictures directly from popular services such as Facebook, Snapfish and Photobucket.”

HP is working with Quickoffice to include the Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite, which lets users view and edit documents, such as Microsoft Word and Excel. It also comes with VPN support to connect to corporate networks.

It's also compatible with HP's printing solutions, allowing users to wirelessly print documents, photos and e-mails to compatible wireless and networked HP printers.

Tough competition

The TouchPad comes as Research In Motion prepares to launch its PlayBook, and excitement builds over Apple's iPad 2.

As a latecomer, HP will have to spend and market aggressively to make headway in the mobile market. The smartphone market is expected to grow 25% this year, while industry tracker iSuppli predicts the tablet market will more than triple.

WebOS allows HP to offer devices with fully-integrated hardware and software, a strategy that has proved extremely successful for Apple.

HP plans to leverage its global footprint to sell WebOS devices. It claims over a billion customers, in 174 countries, with 88 000 retail locations.

Analysts say a robust ecosystem of apps is key to success of mobile devices, and HP will need to spend time and energy enticing software makers to build apps for WebOS.

HP SA says it is currently unable to release any information about when the new products will be available in SA.

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