HP TouchPad prices cut - now they just have to sell

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Friday, 12 August 2011 16:07

Your IT - Home IT

Australia finally saw the HP TouchPad price cuts yesterday that were announced in the US earlier this week, and the TouchPad isn't even on sale yet locally, but with price cuts built, HP now hopes the customers will come.

Remember all those unsanitary jokes about sanitary pads that creepily crept up after Steve Jobs announced that his rumoured iSlate was going to be called the iPad, as we had predicted?

No-one's making jokes now, and the only way that the current crop of Pads that aren't iPads are going to get 'unsanitary' status is if they sit on store shelves without selling.

Thus HP has cut prices in the US, and now Australia, by $100 from both the 16GB and 32GB models.

For Australians, this means the 16GB Wi-Fi will now retail from August 15 at Harvey Norman stores for AUD $499, and the 32GB model for $599.

The Australian prices now undercut iPad pricing, although JB Hi-Fi does have Acer's Iconia 16GB Android tablet at AUD $488, and Toshiba's 16GB Android model for $493.

US customers will pay only US $399 and $499 respectively, making US pricing more competitive, too.

Clearly, HP is doing this to ensure its TouchPad is a success, but cutting prices alone is not always enough to ensure success - especially in today's ever more crowded tablet market - with tablets from several major players such as Sony, Amazon, LG, HTC and others still yet to hit the market.

1. Make sure your TouchPad salespeople, be it in Harvey Norman, Staples, JB Hi-Fi, Best Buy or wherever, are very well trained, so they're experts on how the TouchPad works.

The salespeople need to be able to competently and smoothly:

-    demonstrate the TouchPad's features and benefits
-    show how it accomplishes various tasks more smoothly and efficiently than on either iOS or Android Honeycomb
-    let people hear how it sounds better through Beats by Dr. Dre technology
-    see how its browsing experience is enhanced via compatibility with Flash
-    show how multitasking is more natural to access and more fluid to switch through
-    see Skype video calling in action
-    see the advantage of the 'Just Type' bar in action
-    see how all your information is easily kept in sync and is easily accessible online
-    play pre-loaded free and paid games, from Angry Birds to whatever else best showcases the TouchPad's gaming capabilities
-    show the benefits of the wireless charging pad, and the benefits to owning more than one even though they're optional extras
-    show end users how easy it is to print stuff when connected to an HP printer
-    and do all the other things you can do with a tablet, from listening to, watching or reading digital media, organising yourself through the calendar, connecting via email or other social networking services, organising your photos and videos and sharing some as desired and more.

The iPad has gone a long way to showing people that today's tablets can genuinely perform and deliver on a range of computing tasks that were once strictly relegated to the traditional computer.

HP's TouchPad can do all of this too, but HP needs to more actively show and promote this wherever possible. It has a nice video showing some of this stuff, but I don't think a video's enough... do you?

More ideas on page two, please read on!