How Toshiba is going to beat the iPad to death: with indecision
Engadget’s report Toshiba shows off Smart Pad tablet prototype, promises launch before October highlights succinctly everything that’s wrong with pretty much every PC manufacturer bar Apple. It talks about Toshiba’s exciting response to the iPad, the so-called ‘Smart Pad’; it looks nice enough (in fact, it looks pretty much identical to an iPad), but there the ‘smart’ ends. This is because the tablet’s due to launch “before October” and run either Android or Windows 7.
That’s right: Toshiba is a few months away from releasing its iPad rival and hasn’t decided which operating system it will run. Clearly, it’s sure to beat the tightly integrated, user-friendly experience of the iPad. That said, you can put money on loads of tech hacks citing it as an ‘iPad killer’, due to some random specs that most users won’t care about.
Depressingly, Engadget also reports that HP’s Slate is no longer a consumer product, and will instead be deployed for enterprise. HP’s acquisition of Palm made me think it was the one company that was about to play the game right, taking on Apple in an Apple-like fashion, by being able to develop a fully integrated computing solution. There is speculation that HP will appease Microsoft by still releasing Slate with Windows 7 but then offer the consumer version with PalmOS, but that makes little strategic sense. That would keep Microsoft somewhat happy, but also fragment the platform and irk geek consumers who somehow think that having Windows 7 on a tablet is a good idea—as opposed to an operating system that was actually designed to have on a tablet.
1) stop cribbing from Gruber
2) there’s a rational explanation for this, which is “it’s going to run Windows but we haven’t yet beaten the price we want out of Microsoft”. It’s not indecision. It’s a bartering position.
1. Sorry, I forgot that Gruber is the only person in the world who reads Engadget, and I therefore don’t have the right to comment on something they wrote myself. Dang.
2. If the Slate does run Windows, HP is barking mad. It owns a mobile OS that’s comparable to iOS. It designs hardware. It could create an integrated solution to easily rival the iPad. However, shove Windows 7 into the Slate and you have yet another usability and commercial disaster waiting to happen.
1) Engadget just reported it as straight fact without any commentary. Daring Fireball, however, spun it into a criticism in the exact same manner you did, five days ago (and a good deal more succinctly too). I’d suggest that makes your post fairly redundant, unless you have a lot of readers John Gruber doesn’t — do you think you that’s the case?
2) You are assuming that HP could get a Palm based tablet out of the door anytime soon. Unless there was a significant engineering effort already underway in Palm towards tablets — unlikely, as the company was dying on its arse; it’s hard to imagine speculative R&D was high on its list of priorities — and unless that effort overlapped with HP’s existing Slate work– also highly unlikely, as that’s x86 based and Palm would be targeting ARM architectures — then they basically at square one.
So it’s unlikely they could hope to bring a PalmOS tablet to market in 2010. Would you suggest they wait it out? Or perhaps they could leverage the existing Slate R&D for a high-margin enterprise product running Windows right now (to get at least some return on that capital) and spin off a consumer-orientated tablet using PalmOS as soon as they can in 2011.
Oh, wait, that’s exactly what they are doing.
Still, you’re right, it’s madness to make two product sets for enterprise and consumer customer segments, which is why Apple should kill the iMac and just sell everyone XServes.
I’ve used Windows 7 on a tablet. It’s not aces but it’s not end of the world horrible either. It stands no chance of setting the world on fire, but it might easily find some niches in big corporates, and as HP have already done most of the legwork they have little to lose by releasing this.
1. Thanks for setting me straight. I’ll be sure to search the entire internet and ensure there aren’t 637 unread articles in Google Reader (including a ton of stuff by Gruber, such as, yes, *that* article as it turns out) before I ever write anything again.
Seriously, though, I don’t care if DF opined in the same manner I did—it makes no odds to me. I guess those people that read RTS because they like it. If I say something similar to what Gruber’s already said but that I haven’t read, people can easily enough skip one article, especially considering this blog still runs full RSS feeds.
2. Fair point about HP not yet having enough time to get a Palm device out. However, splitting your market and leading with a product containing an OS you have no control over isn’t the best of moves either.
“Still, you’re right, it’s madness to make two product sets for enterprise and consumer customer segments, which is why Apple should kill the iMac and just sell everyone XServes.”
No. What you’re actually saying is Apple’s missing a trick by not having an iPhone or iPad that runs Mac OS X, aimed at the enterprise market. I’m sure a few people might agree, but it would be a total disaster.
“I’ve used Windows 7 on a tablet. It’s not aces but it’s not end of the world horrible either.”
Wow, that sounds great. Sign me up!
“as HP have already done most of the legwork they have little to lose by releasing this”
Apart from potentially tarnishing their tablet products from that point on.
If it helps, I read here and I’ve absolutely no idea who the fuck John Gruber is, nor do I care.