In Flop of H.P. TouchPad, an Object Lesson for the Tech Sector

 H.P.'s Touchpad will long be remembered as the most noticeable tablet to flop ever and not so surprisingly it relied on technology from Palm, a company which hadn't be an innovation leader in more than an decade. But even a poor performing tablet running an OS which developers weren't eager to build for could have succeeded -- for many non-technical consumers price is the important specification. Once the H.P. tablet fire-sale started -- it became apparent that consumers would purchase this "Flop Tablet" at $99. Within days the sold out tablets were appearing and being purchased on eBay for $199.



NYTimes
The TouchPad tablet from Hewlett-Packard was one of the most closely watched new gadgets of 2011 — and quickly turned out to be the year’s biggest flop.