HP: No Horizontal Usage for Tablet PCs, Not a Mainstream Product

Well, here is a very interesting story straight from the mouth of HP.

PCPro.uk is quoting Alberto Bozzo, HP’s Vice President and General Manager for commercial products, as saying there is “no horizontal usage” for tablet pcs. This coming right on the heals of their 2710P Tablet PC announcement and their TX1000 Tablet PC ( a consumer product ) launch at CES. In addition, he also stated that tablet pcs make up only 5% of HP’s volume.

I guess it is no secret that tablets have not taken off in the consumer area compared to the vertical, but declaring there is “no horizontal usage” is quite the broad statement to make, especially taking in to account Bill Gates recent statements on digital media, the uptake with schools, etc. Does his declaration include the small form factor tablets like UMPCs? I wonder what HP’s partner, Microsoft, thinks of that? It certainly appears as though HP is giving up on the consumer space altogether, and that can’t be sitting well with Microsoft.

Maybe Mr. Bozzo is finally saying publicly what other OEMs have been privately thinking and just addressing the elephant in the room. Interesting times to the say the least:

What says the tablet community?

From PCPro.UK.

No sooner had HP finished presenting its new business tablet, the Compaq 2710p, than Alberto Bozzo, HP’s Vice President and General Manager for commercial products, declared consumer tablet PCs dead.

There is ‘no horizontal usage’ for tablet PCs, he said, referring to tablet PCs in the home – a surprise declaration given that the company launched its Pavilion tx1080ea consumer tablet just two months ago. He also admitted that tablet PCs currently account for only five per cent of HP’s volume, and that tablets were ‘not a mainstream product’.

But there’s life in the form factor yet, he said. There’s still demand from vertical markets such as hospitals and the military, and he said he expected to ‘see more and more volume on this platform’.