HP Confirms webOS Tablet, Will Debut by October

Soon after HP announced that it was acquiring Palm, the web started swarming with rumors that the Windows 7 HP Slate project had been canceled and would be replaced by a tablet based on webOS. This was, more or less, confirmed by a subsequent announcement, which also stated that webOS would show up in upcoming web-connected printers. No real word on availability of webOS slates was offered, however, not until now.

Since webOS was primarily conceived as an operating system for ARM-powered smartphones, it is hardly surprising to hear that HP's next generation of such products will take advantage of it. Digitimes, however, has come forth to not only confirm this, but to also reveal another vital bit of information, reportedly supplied by an HP Taiwan Executive.

Monty Wong, vice president of personal computing systems group at HP Taiwan, is the one said to have stated that the HP Slate would become available before the current fiscal year is over. This means that the latest one can expect to see such a device on sale is in late October. It will be interesting to see what sort of hardware the company has in mind, and how well the tablet will sell during the holiday season. No hint concerning the hardware is provided, unfortunately, but the HP representative did mention that there was a high likelihood of a wide range of software and application support being available at launch.

In addition to handing out the time frame for the arrival of the webOS tablet, Wong also clarified that there were no plans for webOS netbooks, because such systems had a feature set and functionality more similar to traditional PCs than mobile electronics. As for the completion of the Palm acquisition, Mr. Wong said only that further details would be made public at the end of July, by which time the entire procedure would have completed.