
Best Buy Sitting on a Pile of HP Tablets - aaronbrethorst
http://allthingsd.com/20110816/ouchpad-best-buy-sitting-on-a-pile-of-unsold-hp-tablets/
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ansy
HP should just give a tablet away to anyone who signs up to be a developer
even if it is a back door for consumers to get a nearly free tablet. Maybe
even put the free tablet at the end of an Ares tutorial [1].

It's a little late for a back to school bundle sale. At this point we might
see TouchPads go for insane prices on Black Friday. But that's still a couple
months away.

HP needs to be more aggressive about give aways. Google has been giving away
Android devices to thousands if not tens of thousands of people. This excess
stock is a pretty good opportunity to get devices in the right hands.

[1] <http://ares.palm.com/Ares/about.html>

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ecounysis
I wonder if sales of these devices are slow in part because of the OS it runs
on. Everything cool in mobile seems to be either Android or iOS. If developers
don't do webOS, there aren't going to be killer apps for it. And apps sell
devices.

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pedalpete
I've always wondered how valid the 'apps sell devices' theory is. In the
80s/90s, I think it had merit as you bought a computer for the capabilities
provided by the apps. But I look at the apps on my phone (WP7) and with the
exception of games, a fitness tracker and some photo editing apps, I don't
have anything that couldn't be run in the browser. I'd go so far to say that I
often find myself on a web page and then realize that I've got an app that
does offers the same functionality.

Browser, email, maps, media player are the killer apps, and every device has
them. I think games is the downfall of some devices.

Blackberry Playbook not having an email client, that I would call an app that
would prevent a sale, but does anybody really look at the app catalog and say
to themselves "if it hasn't got angry birds, I'm not buying it"?

I've played with webOS, and I wasn't wowed, but anybody I know who as owned a
webOS device (and has had both Android and iOS) are adamant that it is the
best OS experience out there.

