Sunday, September 4, 2011

The 4 Biggest Tablet Blunders Besides HP Touchpad

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When the HP TouchPad went on a $99 fire sale late last week, selling an estimated 350,000 units within a few hours, some members of the media speculated that the tablet's price could have been an issue. That argument was a bit silly since HP had already incurred an estimated bill of materials well above $200 per unit. A high per-unit cost and serious lack of sales combined to eventually lead the company to seek a means of simply getting rid of all its produced units before having to call 1-800-GOT-JUNK. If you were offered a genuine Armani suit for $99, you may very likely buy it, even if you didn't need it. Why? Because you'd know you were getting it a rock-bottom price. The same reasoning applies to the $99 TouchPad. (Though it could be argued which would actually see more use - the suit or the TouchPad?)


The recent high sales numbers alone are unlikely to change HP's mind about the TouchPad's eventual fate. The fact those sales numbers only came during an apparent fire sale does not mean that the TouchPad was simply a good tablet at the wrong price. What it does mean, however, is that it was an ill-conceived product missing critical features that could have made it a big success at its original price. One such critical feature is platform support, which by itself qualifies the TouchPad as one of the five biggest tablet blunders in my mind. Here are four other product ideas that suffered from buyer neglect and eventually ended up in the black hole of computer history.


3Com Audrey (2001)


ZoomI have a secret love affair with Audrey. It was the first tablet I ever used (Apple's Newton/MessagePad and early PDAs aside). I still believe it was an idea that was somehow misguided by the dotcom boom and the (all too common at the time) belief that anything bearing an AOL label would sell for at least $500.


Audrey was a retro-designed, kitchen-white 5-inch tablet with an antenna (no wireless Internet access, though) that came accompanied by a small, matching kitchen-white wireless keyboard. With no battery, it required a wired power adapter such as HP Pavilion dv6000 Adapter, HP Pavilion dv7 Adapter, HP Pavilion dv4 Adapter, HP Compaq 6910p Adapter, HP Compaq nc6220 Adapter, HP Pavilion dv1207us Adapter, HP Pavilion dv5 Adapter, HP Compaq nx9420 Adapter, HP Compaq nx6115 Adapter, HP Compaq 2230s Adapter, so it wasn't operationally portable. Portability (and flexibility) further suffered because it also required a phone line to establish a 56 Kbps dial-up Internet connection.


The Audrey was sold for only seven months, reportedly selling fewer than 500 units in the U.S. My antique-looking personal Audrey still looks appropriate when sitting next to my Kerbango Internet radio. (Kerbango was the first company to produce Internet radios not requiring a separate computer. Kerbango was acquired by 3Com in 2000, and later shut down.)


Be Webpad (2000)


ZoomListing the Be Webpad as a failure is somewhat cruel as it was the only original tablet released during the dotcom boom that got everything right. (Right as far as technologies available at the time are concerned.) However, it missed the big opportunity Apple took advantage of with the iPad. How much more of a blunder can it be?


Personally, I believe that Apple considered failed webpads when creating the iPad by looking into the past at products that worked, and those that didn't. The Be pad may have be one particular product Apple examined very carefully. (Interestingly, Be's CEO at the time, Jean-Louis Gassee, was a former Apple executive.) The Be Webpad was lightweight, had Wi-Fi built-in, a battery, as well as a TFT touchscreen and even BeIA (Be Inc.'s multimedia operating system that was streamlined for use on Internet appliances). Unfortunately, Be had no financial backing and only months to find someone who would license BeIA in order to get the Be Webpad out into the market. Sony was their only customer, who did license BeIA for its eVilla Internet appliance. Sadly, eVilla Internet appliances never shipped in significant numbers.


If there is a predecessor of the modern tablet, then it surely is the Be Webpad.


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