Hewlett-Packard’s tablet PC could use upcoming video-conferencing, at least one camera module, and support for Adobe Flash and removable SD memory cards as differentiating potential of Apple’s best-selling iPad. A 30-second video released by HP shows these and other job functions in the device, which will debut at a yet unannounced date later in 2010. The sales success of the iPad in its first weekend raises the stakes for other competitors seeking to build market share in the consumer PC market growing tablet.
Hewlett-Packard is stepping up its own tablet PC efforts in the wake of Apple’s launch of the iPad, releasing a new official blog and a video ad that shows a product that slate next videoconference
“Think about the last time we chatted with friends using Skype on your laptop,” wrote Phil McKinney, vice president and chief technology officer of Hewlett-Packard Personal Systems Group, April 5 Voodoo publishing company blog. “Or uploaded a photo from your mobile phone to Facebook or Flickr. And the last time you saw the pictures or video from an SD card or USB device. We know that you expect to be able to capture and share digital content on their devices mobiles. ”
The board, it seems, can offer all these functions. A 30-second video that accompanies the blog post shows a pair of hands activating a Skype application for two-way video conferencing, using one of two camera modules built to capture an image, browsing through music connecting a USB cable and inserting a 16 GB SD card memory slot on the side of the device.
In the blog posting, McKinney seems to be taking a shot at Apple’s iPad by suggesting that “media consumption is only half the ideal mobile experience.” Apple has been trying to sell their pills slightly primarily as a means to view movies, electronic books, television programs, websites and other digital content.
While iPad has proved a strong seller in its first weekend of release, may be betting that HP has an advantage in some key aspects of its offer compressed own, including camera modules and ability to run Adobe Flash. The current version of the iPad not have a camera module, nor does it support SB memory cards, which can be used to expand the total memory of the device.
“With this product the board, you are giving a complete web browsing experience in the palm of your hand. No Internet watery, not sacrifice,” McKinney wrote in a March 8 blog post voodoo. “A big advantage for the product slate is that, being based out of Windows 7, which offers full support for Adobe.”
During a January meeting at the headquarters of Apple, Steve Jobs would have suggested that the iPad not support Flash because it was “friend.” In response, Adrian Ludwig, a team member of Platform Product Marketing, Adobe, wrote in a January 27 announcement of the Adobe Flash Platform blog, “It appears that Apple continues to impose restrictions on their devices that limit both the content publishers and consumers. … No Flash support, iPad users can not access the full range of Web content, including more than 70 percent of the games and 75 percent for video on the Web. ”
A first glimpse of HP’s product was given by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer during a keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show in January in Las Vegas, with Ballmer at the time suggested that the capacities of the pill would be extended to e-reading, Web surfing and media playback. In addition to HP, including manufacturers Fujitsu, Fusion Garage, Pegatron and plan Archos in the release tablet to compete in space.
However, these enterprises face a strong competitor in Apple, which announced April 5 that it had sold 300,000 iPads in the U.S. by midnight on April 3. In a statement, Apple CEO Steve Jobs suggested that the average buyer had dropped IPAD three applications and “about a book in the early hours of purchase, to a total of more than one million and 250,000 applications iPad eBooks.
In his statement, Jobs called iPad a game changer. “Whether HP can take advantage of that game changed the space, when it releases its own tablet in a yet unannounced date later in 2010, remains to be seen.