It’s easy to pick on a company when they’re down and despite some good moves in the last year by HP, they’re still down. With that said, what was behind the decision to launch their business-friendly Windows 8 tablet in January?

Being that its primary audience will be the business world, Christmas may not be as important, but they’re still missing out on a portion of the potential sales. More importantly, they will be following several other big-launch tablets, including some Windows 8 competitors. Lastly, this was first teased during the Olympics. Why is it coming out next year?

According to Engadget:

Remember those hazy days of summer when HP ran an ad during the Olympics, slipped in a a shot of an unannounced tablet and thought we wouldn’t notice? (P’shaw!) Well, you can finally lay your speculation to rest, as HP just formally unveiled the mystery tab, along with a slew of accessories. It’s called the ElitePad 900 and, as rumored, it’s a 10-inch Windows 8 slate meant for business users, with features like pen input, drive encryption and optional 3G / 4G.