HP Officially Out of TouchPads

First time accepted submitter AtomicAdam writes "I guess all that waiting and hoping was in vain. HP just sent out an email officially claiming to be out of TouchPads. 'Dear Valued Customer: Making sure customers have a positive experience when they purchase our products is a priority for us. In some cases, limited inventory makes it challenging to fulfill all customer orders. As you signed up for updates on the HP TouchPad, we wanted you to know that we are officially out of stock. Some retailers will have some stock available, but our online inventory is depleted.'"

Re:Price Point

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

No, it's irrefutable proof that the tablets out there so far aren't worth $500.

Re:Price Point

[Telvin_3d]

No, it's proof that people will only buy non-apple tablets when they can get $500 of hardware for $100.

That's not the same as a $100 tablet.

Re:Why the fuss?

[Astronomerguy]

Welll....The OS is fucking superior to iOS - it really is quite nice. It needs more polish, but the multi-tasking is damned nice. The card interface is brilliant and is more intuitive than iOS (full disclosure: I own an iPhone 4 as does my wife and I run OSX in virtualization on PC's on VMWare Workstation despite Apple's odd restrictions). Sure, there aren't 1000 fart apps for it (I found just 1) but as a content consumption and unified communications device it borders on excellent...and you get the ability to play Flash. Overclock the sucker (did I mention that HP embraces Home-brew?) and add some cool hacks and you have a bitchin' beast that as a bonus plays Angry Birds. I can read e-books, .pdfs, remotely connect to my PC and servers, edit MS Office docs... I have access to an iPad and Playbook at work, as do my colleagues, And I've played with both over several weeks. Meh. 9 out of 39 of us bought TouchPads for what it can do, and for the potential to run Android in a dual-boot config. That was my primary reason for jumping on the low-cost 32Gb Touch pad - running Android...until I started using WebOS and dove deep into modding the device. Too bad HP will let it die a painful death. WebOS, we hardly knew ye...

Re:ALL OF YOU are in the Marketroid's trap.

[Genda]

I'm sorry, but this is just a plain ol' fashioned cluster fsck.

Buy WebOS from Palm. Get it to a point where its actually cool beans. Release a product that first users proclaim may in fact be an iPad killer. Kill the product and dump it nearly at cost. Discover that people are really interested in the product, and promises them you'll keep them in touch and that there will probably be enough to sell another round (first hinting that there may be as many as a million, and ultimately that there'll at least be 200,000.) Then after waiting months, being told "Tough noogies!", we sold them all to BEST BUY and other distributors. So you're not going to see these beauties without our strategic partner clipping you for fistful of Benjamins.

So Meg, I get it, HPs little serial brain fart left its partners out in the cold, holding their manly bits and looking really stupid. Embarrassing really. So your fist act as Honcho du Jour, was to get down on your knees and give them a big warm smooch. Make their owwy all better. The thing is, you did it on the backs of your customers. The people who actually thought something of HPs products and their commitment to customer satisfaction. So what we have now to show for our interest and patient waiting is an electronic nasty-gram of your middle finger, telling us once more that HP doesn't give a flying fsck at a rolling doughnut for it's customers. You know, a business does this enough, and after a little while, surprise, it doesn't have any customers.

So I say screw the Touchpad, You've "Lucyed" me one time too many, I don't wanna play football with you anymore. Meg has already indicated that she's killing WebOS, the Touchpad is a dead end, a lost cause, and Touchpad owners and users can go straight to heel, because the entire product line has no future. This has all been a exercise in brain damage and a company that has so lost its way that it's found new and creative ways to piss off its supply chain, its retailers, its customers and its strategic partners. Meg, sweetheart, I understand your hands are full and honestly I see how you got yourself wedged, So I'll cut you some slack, but if this is any hint of HPs future, I don't see a rosy outcome for you or HP.