We reported a few days ago when HP acquired Palm for 1.2 billion dollars and might abandon its plans for the Windows 7 operating system on the new HP Slate. It looks like today that we were right. It looks like in fact that the HP Slate is being delayed with no release date, according to sources within HP.
The HP Slate was riding a nice wave of publicity after the CEO, Steve Ballmer, showed it off in his keynote at CES in January. It was scheduled for release in July and the allot of people were excited about this device as an alternative to Apples iPad.
The Big reason why HP is delaying its Slate is because HP is not happy with Windows 7 as the core operating system. Windows 7 is great for PCS, Laptops and Netbooks but most Slate developers are abandoning it, because it’s just not suitable for a Slate operating system. HPS departure from Windows 7 is the second major setback for Microsoft’s tablet efforts in one week. We reported yesterday that the Microsoft Courier was scrapped. The HP slate and Courier together would have been the first two major, mainstream touch-only tablets using Microsoft platforms.
The operating system is not the only concern with the HP Slate, they admitted that the Intel hardware for the Slate too power hungry for this device to function properly. The Intel Atom Menlow Z530 CPU was the first generation Atom CPU has thermal design power rating of 2W and thermal specifications of 90 degrees consuming 0.75-1.1V power. If the HP Slate is actually produced, it might use the recent Intel Atom processor for embedded devices or wait for 32nm based Atom chips due in 2011. HP admitted that because of the processor and operating system the HP Slate was only going to get five hours of battery life, which is half of the Apple iPad.
So it looks like HP will implement recently acquired Palms WebOS as the operating system of choice for the HP Slate. There is virtually no chance of HP running the Google Android operating system for its OS because HP has said all along that it wants to strongly differentiate itself from the competition. HP executive vice president Todd Bradley indicated that HP wanted Palm’s “innovative operating system”, which it thinks will provide an ideal platform to expand HP’s mobility strategy.
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Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
