This article at PCWorld sums up my thoughts on the HP Touchpad madness that took place this weekend. I should say that I have not used an HP Touchpad but from all of the reviews I've read it was a good device. Just like Apple's iPad. So why didn't it sell when it was originally priced? It was priced the same as the iPad.
When a new entry in an existing market is already dominated by 1 player (I would say that the dominate "player to beat" is the Apple iPad) then you have to set yourself apart from the dominate player. The HP Touchpad has alot of the same features and may have even been better at some thing than the iPad, but for the most part the functionality is the same (same could probably be said for all of the other Android Honeycomb tablets out there, in comparison to the iPad).
The problem is, if a consumer has $X to spend on a widget, do you spend it on the industry leading option or do you spend it on a device that is trying to convince you it is just as good as the industry leading option? I think most people would go with the more "solid" choice in the industry leading option. In order to complete these tablet makers must make a tablet that will compete with Apple where Apple does not want to compete, price.
Apple does not sell a computer/tablet for less than $500 ($499). I wonder why Apple never jumped on the netbook bandwagon a few years ago when pretty much every other manufacturer did. Apple does not want to get into a price war so they always claim their products have soul (or maybe they really give them one? hmm..) or some other feature that tells the consumer that they are worth more cash because the Apple product is different.
Business Lesson: When your competitor has shown their hand and tells the world they don't want to get into a price war, bring one to their doorstep. If the HP Touchpad really was just as good as an Apple iPad and sold for $100, the consumer would have to really think about spending 5 times as much on an iPad or outfitting their whole family with Touchpads. I think if that would have happened this weekend's headlines would have been about Touchpad shortages and HP having the hottest product in the world.
