PalmPad Mentioned By HP Executive

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It was a bit of news when HP filed for the “PalmPad” patent back in July. And now, we’ve actually heard that name surface in reality. During an analyst call, HP’s Todd Bradley, the head of their Personal System Group, got on the call and let slip the name “PalmPad” and also hinted at the release date.

Bradley said that HP has transfered some 200 employees from the HP mothership to Palm. As previously announced, Bradley confirmed that Palm is going to expand it’s product offerings beyond smartphones, and he added this juicy bit:

We’ll have a webOS-powered PalmPad that will be set for release early in 2011.

This looks like it pretty much confirms that the PalmPad will be the name for the device. It’s possible that it could be changed, of course, but with Bradley telling the world, we’ll take his word for it.

If you’re wondering what happened to the HP Slate – remember that despite rumors, that device was always going to be a Windows 7 tablet. It’s now been redubbed the HP Slate 500 and is only being sold to enterprise customers (for hospitals, insurance companies, etc.). So while the tech blog circuit suggested that the HP Slate could be given webOS and reintroduced, it seems pretty clear that was never the case and that HP/Palm were going to come up with their own tablet from scratch.

What do you think? Does a webOS-powered PalmPad sound good to you? Tell us what you think in the comments section.