webOS HP Slate Coming Soon? [HP to Release webOS-based Tablet After Palm Acquisition; Windows 7 & Android Slates Also in the Works?]

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Just yesterday we heard that HP has decided to buy Palm which is a move we definitely salute. Not only was Palm saved, yet again, from a near death experience, but HP can now play with a mobile OS which can be turned into a great alternative to iPhone and Android if played smart.

First off, I’ll tell you that we have no actual confirmation that the HP Slate coming soon will run Palm’s modified webOS instead of Windows 7 or Android. But for HP not to consider making a hot tablet running Palm’s next webOS version will be a total mistake. We have already seen a first hands-on review on an early HP Slate and the device was not the hot iPad rival we anticipated it to be.

And if Windows 7 can’t be yet a viable solution for a tablet, which is something suggested by Microsoft, a company that’s not willing to even announce a Windows 7-running tablet like the Courier, then HP should quickly look to webOS and Android. Sure the later is also a potential OS for one of the upcoming Slates but now that HP has its own mobile OS it would be such an error not to launch a webOS tablet in the very near future.

Furthermore the webOS environment brings something crucial to an HP tablet, a webOS store that would offer lots of content for the future webOS Slate. Just a little while ago, while I was praising the upcoming Slate, well before I read that unofficial review, I did tell you how HP is going to miss a key element which Apple fully knows how to utilize to drive iPad sales: the App Store. HP didn’t have one but now it has and we still call it the App Catalog. And thus it holds one of the keys to consumers’ hearts as the tablet is but a futile instrument if the user isn’t offered lots of affordable content for it.

Don’t expect us to tell you when the webOS HP Slate will hit stores either because we have no way of knowing that at this point. We don’t know when a Windows 7 or Android HP Slate will be made available either but we’re certain of the fact that HP should shift its focus on webOS and its new mobile division we like to call Palm. And HP is definitely a smart company, since it did purchase Palm in the first place thus beating other companies interested in the webOS creator like HTC, Lenovo and even RIM (which was rumored to want Palm at some point earlier this week).

Last, but not least, this HP – Palm deal sounds exactly like what the doctor ordered. You have a company that knows how to build good, dependable hardware and you have a company that knows how to make hot mobile devices and develop appropriate software solutions for them. Let’s just hope HP is a lot better at selling webOS products than Palm is. Because really, that’s what apparently Palm couldn’t do for more than a year now.

What about you? What would you rather buy? A webOS HP Slate or an Android / Windows 7 one? That’s assuming you didn’t get the iPad yet, of course.

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