Can Hewlett Packard make a credible smartphone after its catastrophic exercise in tablet computing?
The last time HP released a tablet, the company put into effect an emergency escape plan: ditch the HP Touchpad by dropping the price down to $99.
However, HP CEO Meg Whitman was confident HP smartphones and tablets could compete against Apple, comparing the nature of the technology industry to a game of leap-frog in an interview with the WSJ.
“We’ve got to deliver these fantastic sets of new mobility devices and we are all over this,” Whitman said in her address to 60 Chief Information Officers at the WSJ CIO Network conference in Sand Diego.
“We want to be the solution for the new style of IT.”
Whitman’s vision for HP is part of her five year plan for the company and believes it boils down to great products and services.
“I mean company’s like us come back on the basis of great products, great services, that solve really tough problems.”
In September of last year, Whitman revealed an HP smartphone will run Google’s Android software rather than the company’s own WebOS operating system.
“We have to offer a smartphone because in many countries of the world that is your first computing device.
“There will be countries around the world where people may never own a tablet, or a PC, or a desktop. They will do everything on the smartphone. We’re a computing company; we have to take advantage of that form factor.”
