The HP Touchpad was discontinued because it couldn’t do it.
How can you beat Apple?
The Washington Post featured an article entitled, “HP Touchpad, HP Pre 3 [smart phone] still in high demand despite being discontinued.” And despite original plans to the contrary, HP says that the phone will not go on sale in the U.S. at all, according to PC Mag.
“The devices have not met internal milestones and financial targets,” HP said in its earnings release Thursday, according to the Washington Post. HP had dramatically slashed the price of its tablet just a little under two months after its release, but continued to be dogged by poor sales and mixed reviews.
The choice between an iPad for $499 or another tablet for the same price, such as HP’s TouchPad, led to consumers overwhelmingly choosing the iPad, which currently holds a 93% share of the tablet market.
Tablet makers will still battle heavy competition other than HPs Touchpad, including:
- Apple’s iPad
- Research in Motion, Blackberry Playbook
- The Dell Streak 7 Tablet (running Android)
- Asus Eee Pad Transformer
- Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Tab
- T-Mobile’s G-Slate
- HTC Flyer tablet
CNNmoney reported that Forrester Research senior analyst Sarah Rotman Epps said, “Miscalculations in price [equals] imminent failure” for tablets other than iPads (i.e. the HP Touchpad).
Fierce competition always lends itself to consumers shopping around, comparing products and prices. This tells tablet makers how to compete with Apple – on price!
Amazon is working on its own tablet, as well, due out this fall. Certainly, it makes a lot of sense for them to offer one. Tablets are used primarily for surfing the web and streaming media. Of course, the streaming media is the main reason Amazon wants to offer a tablet of its own.
It might just be Amazon that beats Apple in the marketplace, eventually. Or, makes the biggest dent in that 93% market share. That is, if Amazon prices it right. They already have brand trust.
In a poll conducted by BusinessInsider that asked, “Which of these manufacturers would you seriously consider buying a tablet from?” 55% of respondents selected Amazon. Further, the poll showed that 50% of people that planned to buy a tablet would go with the iPad, while the other 50% were open to other brands. Good news for Amazon.
The Kindle is a prime example of Amazon’s sojourn into devices. While iPad will most likely hold on to the “best” tablet category, an Amazon tablet would be trusted as being a value.
All in all, what we can take away from all this news is even the big boy’s make mistakes in the marketplace.
Learning from and overcoming mistakes is what will decide the fate of any business. That includes those of us in business on a smaller scale. Failure can teach us valuable lessons as much as success can.
Don’t fear failure. Learn from it.
