Apple’s iPad and the HP/Microsoft Slate are not in competition with each other, an HP exec has suggested.
Phil McKinney, vice president and chief technology officer for HP’s personal systems group, took care not to mention the rival firm by name at a press event in Barcelona today, claiming he preferred to refer to Apple as “the fruit company”.
“We never positioned the Slate against their product, the use cases are not the same, the things people do with them are not the same,” he said.
“It’s not about saying ours is a better slate than theirs, it’s about two different segments of the marketplace looking at products doing two different things.”
McKinney added that rather than competing against one another, having two tablet computers in the market was actually helpful to the vendors.
“The benefit of having both players in the market coming out with products at the same time is you’re not in the mode of having to spend a huge amount of dollars trying to educate the customer to get ready for these new categories. If we had brought the slate out two years ago when we had it done, think about what the consumer reaction would have been,” he said.
Eric Cador, senior vice president for HP’s personal systems group, made a point of showing the device at the ‘Touching the Senses’ event, saying “I just wanted to show you that it’s real, it exists.” He added that the device is on schedule to ship later this year, but did not give a more specific timeframe.
Advertisement
Related Stories
- The Pope loves Microsoft. Fact. May 25th 2012 at 4:13PM
- The Apple iPhone 5 rumour mill May 25th 2012 at 2:50PM
- Developer fined £50,000 over fake Angry Birds app May 25th 2012 at 12:28PM
- HP fires Mike Lynch May 25th 2012 at 12:21PM
- Yahoo unveils innovative search software for Apple May 24th 2012 at 2:27PM
- Westcoast to hold HP Generation8 events May 23rd 2012 at 10:15AM
- Vendor job cuts rumoured to be on the way May 21st 2012 at 1:21PM
- Apple tells Siri complainers to get a different phone May 18th 2012 at 12:13PM
- iPhone 5 'bigger screen' rumours gather pace May 17th 2012 at 2:13PM
