Smartphones from Hewlett-Packard
Tech Giant Hewlett-Packard is next aiming for mobile computing market with a planned launch of Smartphones later this year. This was confirmed by HP general manager of mobile computing Ted Clark. However, Ted refused to give any more details about their planned product on what hardware and software platform they are going to support. Field experts are quite sure that they would adopt the traditional and safer mode of relying on Microsoft Window’s technology.
They already have PDA’s in the form of Compaq’s iPaq. Though with their upcoming offerings HP is planning to target the business customers instead of normal users. Ted told the media: “We will develop the expertise we have in the handheld space, and shrink it down and see what we can do to deliver something in the category.” Their offering in iPaq has mobile functionality though it is more of a PDA rather than a smartphone.
Current players in the Smartphone market are the very popular Motion’s BlackBerry and recently in news with their Cingular Wireless collaboration PalmOne’s Treo models. Critics believe HP has got the expertise and technology to provide a genuine smartphone device, which should easily take on any existing product in the market. The market will be expanded with a major player entering the field, which would generate the much need excitement and interest from the consumers.
Looks like the next big field after the digital music player is the smartphones market. We expect to see more players jumping in as consumers would be looking for extended choice. Apple is one of my predicted companies to get into the Mobile market as people look beyond just music players for complete entertainment units with more functionalities.
