With HP’s announcement that they were discontinuing the Touchpad due to a lackluster reaction from the public, the unexpected has occurred. After slashing the price to a bargain bin price of 99 and 149 for the 16GB and 32GB models, respectively, demand has soared. Suddenly, HP is dealing with an unbelievable amount of demand, as evidenced by their call centers being jammed over the past week.
It seems to reason that HP will want to do everything it can to satisfy the new Touchpad demand. After all, some of the people wanting them already use HP products, or might be so impressed by the Touchpad that they try other HP products. It would be good PR for HP to fulfill as many Touchpad orders as possible, which it seems they will do. Whether that’s enough to satisfy the demand remains to be seen. After all, no one knows how many are available, and HP has stated that they will not be manufacturing anymore units.
The subject of manufacturing units raises an interesting idea, though. The whole idea of canceling the Touchpad was due to a lack of sales. The lack of sales was presumably due to a lack of support in the WebOS community. It’s a vicious cycle. WebOS doesn’t have enough apps to compete with Android and iOS, and this keeps users away. The lack of users keeps developers away who might otherwise develop for WebOS. During the Touchpad frenzy, HP will have suddenly created a ver ylarge WebOS community. HP might figure that it would make sense to manufacture a limited amount of Touchpads, keeping the clearance price. This would add even more users to the growing base.
Given this thinking, it might make sense for HP to manufacture more Touchpads. They’ve already spiked demand, and if the new user base raves about the product, suddenly a Touchpad 2 doesn’t seem so far fetched now that the platform has a leg to stand on. However, manufacturing more seems unlikely, at least at the clearance price. HP’s in a strange situation, though, and we should expect to see them do everything they can to satisfy this new demand for the Touchpad.
