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When Microsoft unveiled the HP Slate at this year’s CES, it was self-confidently presented by CEO Steve Ballmer as the implied killer of a tablet, the iPad, that wasn’t even announced yet.
Unfortunately, the reality was that any tablet running Windows 7 just wasn’t going to be competitive in the same space as a device with an operating system that had been built from the ground-up with multitouch input in mind.
That was what was so exciting about HP’s acquisition of the beleagured Palm: they finally had access to just such an operating system. Palm’s webOS is, if not quite as good as the iPhone OS, then at least potentially as good. HP owning its own operating system made the likelihood of their tablets being iPad-competitive much greater.
Now, it seems confirmed this is exactly what HP plans: marry webOS with their tablet hardware. According to Digitimes, HP has tasked Palm with providing a version of the company’s webOS to be used with the Slate.
There aren’t any more details, but this means one of two things: HP intends on remaking webOS to run on the Slate’s Intel Atom processor (a major move that is unlikely due to practicality) or HP is canning the existing Slate and re-envisioning it as an ARM device. Our money’s on the latter, and we’re excited: we can’t wait to see what HP has in store for webOS tablets.
