HP Tablet Due in Q3

The first fruit of HP’s acquisition of Palm will be a Web OS-enabled tablet device due out in the second half of 2010.

Codenamed “Hurricane”, the HP tablet which is presumably the same device running Windows 7 that was recently scrapped will be the first product of HP and Palm’s union, which is due to be finalized at the end of July.

HP has strong plans for Web OS, including building upon the base created by Jon Rubinstein’s team and emphasizing developer tools, and clearly wants to get a product out before Apple’s iPad seals up the market.

It is unknown at this point whether the device will run Flash, but this is definitely one area where Apple’s position has been made clear, and an area where consumers have indicated that they would at least like the option of running Flash, even at the expense of usability, performance and battery life.

The tablet will be the first instance of Palm’s Web OS running on anything other than a candy bar-style smartphone, and it should be interesting to see how Web OS is scaled up to a larger screen, and if HP is able to strengthen the platform and position it as genuine competition to iPhone OS.

Source: Boy Genius Report