There is no denying the fact that when it comes to tablets Apple’s iPad is the reigning king of the hill but it was a reign that HP was really hoping that they could make a serious dent in with their webOS powered TouchPad.
When first launched there was a lot of buzz around it and the reaction was, for the most part, pretty favorable. It was good enough at the time that Best Buy decided to jump on the TouchPad bandwagon and ordered up 270,000 of HP’s tablet.
Now months later it turns out that where it matters most – in the consumers hands – the TouchPad was far from a success as Best Buy apparently has only sold 25,000 of the them; and this is even after a $100 price cut.
Things are so bad that Best Buy is telling HP that it wants to return all of their unsold stock of the TouchPad.
According to the same source, Best Buy took 270,000 TouchPads into inventory, and so far has managed to move less than ten percent of them—and that figure may not even take returned units into account. Best Buy reportedly no longer wants unsold TouchPads taking up space in its stores and warehouses, and is requesting that HP take the stock back.
Best Buy and Woot are not alone in their inability to move TouchPads, analyst Rich Doherty of the Envisioneering Group told AllThingsD; WalMart, Microcenter, and Fry’s have all struck out.
via Ars Technica
This is happening at the same time that HP is trying to position its webOS as a natural fit for things other than just the TouchPad.
SlashGear has a post up about how HP is also exploring the option of putting the webOS software into things like cars and home appliances based on an enormous amount of interest from manufacturers.
Given the rip-roaring success of the TouchPad I wish HP all the luck in the work in cracking an even harder market, after all they do have to find some way to recoup the fortune they paid for Palm and webOS.
