Look out Apple, former PC king HP are on your tails.
 Click to enlarge |
| HP Slate 2, the Windows 7 tablet released last year. |
That’s according to Meg Whitman, Hewlett Packard’s new Commander-In-Chief, who outlined a new plan for a Windows 8 based corporate tablet, reports AAP.
However, ex eBay CEO Whitman, viewed as the saviour of struggling HP in the new mobile-centric PC environment led by Apple’s iPad, admitted Cupertino’s domination of the tab industry, saying:
“It is not really a tablet market, it is an iPad market.”
“We are going to provide an alternative,” that will be kitted out with security and management features” as well as Microsoft’s new platform, she told Wall Street Journal Viewpoints event in Silicon Valley’s Menlo Park.
“There is a big trend to BYOD to work; which is all well and good until there is a security breach.”
Whitman even admitted she owned HP’s arch rival cult tablet device:
“The iPad is terrific; I have one,” she said.
However, despite her love for the iPad, Whitman didn’t desist from getting the knife in to her device, at the same time, shrewdly mentioning she uses her tab for recreation not work (unlike the HP tab that’s a-coming).
 Windows 8 tabs set to make an assault this year. |
“I use it to read books or watch TV but I don’t use it to really get work done.”
This comes after HP’s TouchPad on the WebOS platform released last year, was a spectacular flop and led to Australian retailers selling the cursed device off for a knock down price of $98.
“What HP needs is a steady hand on the tiller,” she said referring to her Palo Alto giant’s recent troubles, where it couldn’t decide whether it was a hardware or software company, or both, leading to the demise of Leo Apotheker, former HP CEO.
She also distanced herself from HP’s controversial decision to spin off its still profitable PC hardware business, despite the fact she approved the decision as a board member, reports WSJ.
However, Whitman now says she wants HP, still one of the top PC brands in the world (although recently pushed off the top spot by Apple) to be best known for cloud computing in the coming years.
She also revealed she had no political ambitions despite the fact she is a pal of Mitt Romney, one of the Republican Party hopefuls to beat President Obama in the elections later this year.
She would nt accept a position in any new Romney administration, she said.
