HP's Android Tablet to Land in 2011

Hewlett Packard, the leading computer maker all around the world, according to the latest report from Gartner, might not come to the market with a tablet during the ongoing year. The company was originally expected to bring to shelves in 2010 a slate running either under Google's Android operating system or under its newly acquired webOS platform from Palm, but chances are that these plans got delayed at least to early 2011.

According to a recent article on All Things Digital, the leading computer maker is working on more than just one tablet PC. Moreover, it seems that these slates would run under various operating systems, including Google's Android OS, as well as under the Palm webOS platform (Previous reports also suggested that HP would aim at bringing to the market a slate powered by Microsoft's Windows 7 OS, but nothing was unveiled on the matter lately). While the original plan was to bring that Android slate into user's hands before the holiday season, the move won't happen until next year, the news site states.

No official explanation on why things got delayed was offered, but chances are that HP would actually aim at releasing first a tablet running under webOS. At the moment, this device is expected to arrive sometime this fall, but chances are that this plan would be pushed back as well. All in all, it is possible that HP is actually reconsidering its plans for the tablet PC market, now that it has an operating system of its own.

Hewlett Packard already said that it intends to invest a lot of effort into making the webOS platform a successful solution, as well as into putting it on more than just smartphones. “We’re going to increase [R&D spending on webOS]. And we’re going to increase sales and marketing as well. We’re going to take this platform, which today exists for smartphones only, and make it much broader than that,” HP’s Jim Burns said during a conference call announcing the purchase of Palm.