HP denies shipping TouchPad tablets with Android

HP is investigating why an unknown number of TouchPad WebOS tablets may have been sold with Android on board. It denies shipping TouchPads with Android installed, even in error. Claims that some TouchPads had gone out with Android loaded in place of HP's WebOS recently did the rounds on the internet. That prompted not …

[Anonymous Coward]

More likely.

It was an behind doors alternative to ditching the tablet business entirely, that they wanted to join Android with their existing hardware, and the memo to destroy the dev units got "lost in the post"...

[DrXym]

Maybe they should

Rather than just pack up shop.

[Peter Gathercole]

Can we be sure

that these devices were actually TouchPads, and not some counterfeit Chinese copy based on an existing Android device on from eBay? Has anyone actually seen one?

Or maybe, the Chinese manufacturing plant have just decided to keep making them and shipping them without HPs say-so.

It would be nice if it were the latter, because possibly we may be able to buy them at a price closer to the manufacturing price than they would be from HP.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you want to do this?

The Touchpad hardware was sucky, the good part was the OS. Why would you want to chuck away the only good part?

[Tom Chiverton 1]

No complaints about the hardware or software from me, as one of the lucky ones.

[Tobor]

Watch out...

...there are trolls about!

[Anonymous Coward]

Either they have been bought, modified and sold on

or they continued to be made in the same factory without HP's blessing.

[Sam Liddicott]

scared of the shareholders

HP are scared of the shareholders - could it be true that HP could have installed android and then sold for $199 instead of $99 ?

We all know it flopped 'cos of webos

[Anonymous Coward]

Why?

"It is a significant detriment to HP and HP’s participation in and relationship with the open source community to have non-authorised Android software delivered on HP TouchPad devices,"

I don't really understand what he said there.

Shipping TouchPad with Android on is bad for the open source community? Really?

[thecakeis(not)alie]

To me it reads more like...

"By insisting that HP live up to the terms of the various open source licences involved, the Open Source Community is damaging its relationship with HP. We reserve the right to modify everything for our own benefit and never give anything back unless we can make an absolute mint off of it. Your desire to own the hardware you purchase is a detriment to HP and its attempts to fleece you for the good of shareholders.”

[N13L5]

truth...

...rarely seen it worded so well

[Manu T]

HP = incompetence

"...and relationship with the open source community..."

WTF?!?

Are they kidding?

WHAT relationship with the Open Source Community is he talking about? Can someone please elaborate?

AFAIK HP is a US marketplace of rich incompetent bastards with a similar interest as Samsung... Flooding the market with subpar products boasting their logo with total disregard to what ppl really want, need or desire! HP should return to its core business (calculators and printers) and stop buying companies to destroy their tech. They ruined Compaq, they ruined Palm... hell, they even destroyed their own cpu/server/unix businness. HP is the best example of incompetence in this industry. They should be shot! All of them!

[N13L5]

uhh hang on now...

Comparing them to Samsung is a touch unfair...

Samsung actually manages to make phones, TV's, laptops and other stuff that is pretty competitive and often enough technically well ahead of everybody, including Sony and Apple anyway. Sony and Apple have been a bit alike, selling year old components in a shiny package for today's premium prices. Sony is actually shaping up a bit on that, finally, probably cause they got out-done on their own trick by Apple.

Apple only sued Samsung, cause Samsung wouldn't give them dibs on their Amoled factory output. Why, with all the lawsuits, do you think Samsung is still manufacturing Apple's Arm CPU's and the new iPhone 4s is full of Samsung chips? Cause nobody else can make it for the dumb fabless bastards.

235 billion in cash, but too cheap to build themselves a Fab, thats Crapple for you.

The outsourcing works brilliantly for a while, let the suppliers take most of the risk for small profit, while raking it in with the consumers. But then, the guys who actually build the cool tech start wondering why they should let some uppity design shop milk all the profits, while they're making do with the slim earnings of african cotton pickers. They recognize the modern colonialism and suddenly, there's sand in the gears and competition gets tough as they keep their best technology for their own products, like with the Galaxy SII etc.

Because they aren't forced to rely on western bankers...

The Rothchilds and their kind may have won in the west, cause western democracies failed in regards to keeping control of their money. But in Asia, it might not be such a cakewalk, one can hope. Stuff like having JFK shot won't suffice there, cause the Chinese had enough time to analyze what went down in the U.S. I doubt if the Chinese government is going to let private bankers steal their lunch.