HP has released a new tablet called the HP Slate Tablet PC, running Windows 7. I was excited at the prospect of getting one, thinking that both Microsoft and HP have had 2 years to come up with some real competition for the iPad. In case you are getting excited, I must advise you are going to be terribly disappointed.
I think you can always tell a bit about a product from the packaging that it comes in; you can’t even compare it to the iPad. It is just awful, with no apparent design talent applied. To call it industrial would be kind. Then you get to weight. It shouldn’t be called a tablet, it should be called a brick. What were they thinking? Did they not understand the requirements of thin, lightweight, fast, and with a reasonable battery life?
My first experience of turning the “tablet” on was an error message informing me that Windows crashed on last start-up. How reassuring! Then you have all the fun of trying to run Windows 7 – let me tell you this is no fun at all, and quite impractical. There has been little thought put into integrating the OS with the hardware. You are still asked to press CTRL-ALT-DEL to login! Hopefully Windows 8 will have some new thinking from Microsoft as to how to run an OS on a tablet.
So the net result, very disappointing and I now have a very expensive photo frame! The introduction of this product is another great case study in how not to release a product to market.
I recently wrote a brief article for the IOD Waikato branch on a presentation by Andy Hamilton, CEO of the Icehouse. The Icehouse was founded in 2001 in recognition of the importance of SMEs to the New Zealand economy. The Icehouse’s goal is to lift success rates and management capability in both start-ups and owner-managed established firms. In 2010, Forbes Magazine named it one of the top 10 technology incubators that are changing the world.
A part of the presentation included background to an initiative called 3000.org.nz – recognition that NZ needs 3000 globally competitive businesses by 2020 to get back into the top half of the OECD league table. An info-graphic on the problem can be found here.
Top marks to BNZ and NZTE for their funding of the Icehouse, together providing up to $1.5 million to assist business owners to take advantage of their Owner Manager Programme.