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Too Slow to Market
Channel partners at HP’s Americas Partners Conference 2011 in March were clamoring to get their hands on HP’s TouchPad tablets for their end customers that wanted a tablet that supported Flash. But customers were tired of playing the waiting game. Many opted for iPad before Touchpad’s launch date on July 1.
Too Few Apps
While Apple’s App Store and the Android Marketplace claimed hundreds of thousands of apps, WebOS only had 6,000 to start with.
More of the Same
A quick view of the tablet market shows iPad in the lead with a host of other tablets trying to catch up. TouchPad was one of the crowd and HP had not effectively demonstrated to potential buyers why their device was better than any of the others.
No 3G/4G Support at Launch
HP promised that later versions of the device would support 3G and 4G but the first generation supported only Wi-Fi, a limitation when pitted against other tablets.
No Support for Storage Cards
Promoted as a security feature, HP made the decision to not support external storage cards. There are no slots. That left users hitting just 16Gb or 32Gb of internal memory – not very much.
Inadequate Promotion
HP’s integration of its webOS phone with its webOS TouchPad tablet provided some pretty nifty features. For instance, a user could touch one device to the other to share a web page. But the features were not widely promoted. Indeed, while there are plenty of walking advertisements for iPad, HP did not put enough marketing muscle behind its tablet launch.
Exclusive Software Relationships
TouchPad shipped with Kindle preinstalled and Citrix supported, but the company said it did not plan to initially support either VMware’s desktop virtualization or other eBook formats. That was likely at turn off for buyers who preferred the other software.
High Costs
Electronics analyst firm iSuppli estimated that it cost HP $306.65 to make each TouchPad, not including the $1.2 billion HP plunked down to acquire Palm and the webOS in the first place. That’s a big investment to have been made.
Pricing Too High
With the market leader, iPad starting at $499, HP was foolish to price its TouchPad comparably. iPad had already established itself as the device to beat on functionality, style and price. It didn’t have better functionality or style. Price was its only option.
Pricing, Again
But once HP dropped the price to $99 for the entry-level model, the TouchPad flew off the shelves. Days later it was out of stock everywhere. Tech publications were running articles on “what to do with your $100 TouchPad” (i.e. It’s cheaper than a Kindle, and it has a Kindle app. Or, program it with kids’ sites and give it to your kid.)
Hewlett-Packard 
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