One last production run for TouchPad HP swears this is it: the end, the final, never-to-be-repeated, absolutely the last time: but there will be just one more production run of TouchPads for punters that missed out on cheap-as-chips deals when it killed off the unloved fondleslab. When retailers cut the price to shift the just-launched end-of-life stock, …
HP is going to manufacture more new TouchPads (costing them $296/$318: http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/News/Pages/HP-TouchPad-Carries-$318-Bill-of-Materials.aspx) and then sell them for $99?
Well more power to them if they actually do this - keeping potential customers happy rather at the cost of a large loss on every unit sold is an interesting strategy.
They may well have already paid for these parts, so putting them together and selling them is less revenue negative than just disposing of them.
The parts might also be spares, continued storage of which would be unnecessary for an unsupported product.
Because they've already bought the parts to make them from suppliers etc.
What else are you going to do with a load of 9.8 inch touchscreens in a warehouse in china?
Also, the OS isn't orphaned. And people will get android running on it, and potentially ubuntu. So it's $318 bill of materials hardware, pre-assembly, for $99.
So yes, it kind of is worth trying to get hold of one at that price. Unless you can suggest a cheaper way to get equivalent hardware? No?
...who managed to get the $98AUD Tpad and who is really happy with it... every Tpad sold is one more WebOS user.
If Hp is smart in any way, they will keep some back for the developer community. If it really wants WebOS to remain viable it needs developers producing apps and developers need Touchpads and Pre phones to work with.
But then Hp has not shown too many smarts of late!
They may well have a warehouse full of parts and assemblies that they can't use for anything else.
That means they might limit their losses by producing a bunch more and selling them for, say, $250.
That way they get $250 back for each $300 investment, which is a better deal than scrapping $200 time 100.000 units in parts, losing $5M instead of $20M.
But everybody knows they've been selling now for $100--$200, so reaching shops at $250 in a few weeks/months time is not going to help.
And argued e.g. on TheRegister, most of the shopping frenzy was a the idea it was a unique opportunity; people felt they got a fantastic deal vs. the $400 asking price (the day before) --- many people wouldn't have bought the $200 device if sold previously at that price.
So a $250 asking price means they will want to get it for $75--$150 max! Paying $250 means having missed the boat on paying $100, and gives people (irrationally) a feeling of having lost out (rather than paying a fair price for a quite good machine).
Is that how HD-DVD dominated the marketplace? They also had a last firesale...
Unless there's a long term strategy and actual abundant supply, it will merely make a blip in sales.
I also wonder if retailers will want to carry it, since the last firesale left their websites dead for a whole day or 2. Having your website down for everyone else a whole day at Xmas time is not a good idea, and the sales margins on these tablets surely can't be that high.
I don't think so. I got a 32GB version. Nice kit, nice OS but a lemon when it comes to Apps. Basic requirements for a fondleslab are a decent browser, email and media playback..
Browser doesn't work reliably with two many high profile websites (this includes BBC, Google Streetview & iBulletin forums). Email doesn't work with Dovecot IMAP (known for some time and not fixed), and media doesn't play mpg, avi ...)
My OSF smartphone makes a better slab!
Yep Android Apps have their quirks. But there is almost always a good free alternative to fit one's own quirks. WebOS doesn't and I would think never. The CEO was dead right in killing the product stone dead on sight. It says something about HP's previous marketing expertise that it got so far. It bears all the hallmarks of an engineer led project. Nothing against engineers but they, and marketeers, should never be let out on their own.
Hopefully a stable Android or Ubuntu OS will arrive eventually. But don't bet on it. There's a lot of showstoppers in cracking all the device drivers to make it certain.
It runs the Kindle app quite well, so far. So I have a large-screen, backlit, color Kindle with 10 times the storage, for $150US. An excellent deal.
And the browser works *much* better than Kindle's little foray into that field. Haven't even bothered to try the email, I just don't care. I have better things to read.
SWMBO wants one too, if we can snag one of those "final-run" units.
Unfortunately kindle not availble in the UK App Catalog. Quite happy with the TP, but does need a couple of minor updates to make it a little more stable. Won't touch ubuntu/android till they got it nicely sorted! But don't regret getting the 32GB for £115!
Hope the Kindle app makes it to the UK catalog soon!
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"...what a brilliant plan! Remind me though - when exactly do the profits enter the picture?"
Yeah like those retards at Google offering search for free. HOW WILL THEY EVER MAKE MONEY.
Oh wait, HP webOS search revenue already surpassed all Android tablets COMBINED. Android, made by -the- advertising firm of our generation: Google. With this tablet HP has laid the smackdown on Apple and Google at the same time.
Unfortunately, "PC's becoming a sunset industry" only exists in the minds of the more loony industry analysts and the dreams of the tablet pushers.
Hint: Your job may be possible to do using only one 10" screen and a "point and peck" onscreen touch keyboard taking up a third of it, but mine definately isn't.
As I said elsewhere, last time round it was thin clients that were supposed to do for the PC. At least that one made some sort of sense, even if it didn't happen. Anyone betting the farm on tablets displacing PCs should be top of any 419ers list of gullible targets.
Dent the sales of low-end laptops? Yes. Increase the number of suited idiots going; "Looky. I haz iPad!!11!!" in meetings? Yes. Displace laptops entirely in the consumer space? Possibly. Change the world? No.
if HP didn't miss a trick here.
The TouchPad was never going to compete with the iPad and top end Android tablets, the WebOS ecosystem just isn't there, but if HP had decided to stuff the first million or so TouchPads into the market as loss leaders for WebOS and the Pre 3...who knows. Even at a break even of between £200 and £250 I think they would have sold decent numbers which would at least have given HP a foot in the door and a platform to build on.
£200-£250 is the bare minimum *production* cost. Someone needs to pay the WebOS developer's salaries, licenses, patents... that all adds up and pushes the actual cost much higher.
How would HP ever get back those "subsidies" with apps going so cheap (noticed how tablet/mobile games are so much cheaper than consoles?) and without hair pulling commissions on app/media sales? Or some sort of subscription?
It would just haemorrhage money..
I cannot believe no one has see the printing angle here, the touchpad has the best direct printing support of all tablets including the holy grail Ipad.
They get every punter to buy or hook a HP printer to the device then the money will come back on printer ink or toner.
For the record I paired my Touchpad with a HP Photosmart Wireless e-All-in-One Printer (CN245B) that once hooked up to my WI-FI, worked like a charm and at a brilliant price of 50euro.
There might actually be some kind of master plan behind this foolish behavior.
Given the recent patent craze the Palm patents might actually be worth more than Nortels, maybe something like 4 billion.
Add an installed base of a couple o million devices, enough to attract a fair amount of developers.
Suddenly the the investment of 1.2 billion for Palm, plus a couple of hundred million for market share, could easily quadrouble.
I was kind'a hoping this move would make some of the other manufacturers sit up and take notice, and do some drastic price cutting, but nothing yet.
Staples are selling the Transformer for £358 (UK) with the keypad, drop another ton off that and I'm in - the transformer also includes an SD slot so you're not constrained by the devices built in storage limitation.
According to the FAQ they are only going to issue the new batch to people who registered interest / were disappointed last time.
I reached the "Confirm Sale" final button before the website crashed out and after that the only news on there was "Sold Out".
So I think this is for people who managed to press that button THEN replied to the mail saying "Sorry your order won't complete as we sold out".
I know a few people here who got several and also plenty who bought them with no intention of using them but could not resist a bargain. I have no no laptop or pad but was considering getting an iPad 3 so this is a triple slap in the face to have the HP pad sell out in public, sell out on the staff offer and then not have a way to register for one of the last batch. :(
Reminds me of the run on the TI99/4A of yesteryear.
Its cheap... its obsolete before the box is opened... you can't sell one two months later even for what you groped it at a firesale for... but boy what a rush scoring something unsupported by the manufacturer (I guess with no warranty either?) that is plummeting in value faster than the inventory is dropping!
Anyone want a new-in-the-box TI99/4A?
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