A Proposal for HP
I have an idea for HP and their TouchPads, but first…
First, a bit of back story
Recently, HP found that their sales of the TouchPad tablet were less than satisfactory and decided to scrap the whole project. Not just the tablets, but their entire computer making efforts… computers, tablets.. the works. To prove their point, they dropped the price of the TouchPad from $399 to just $99 to get them out of the stores.
Not only did they go out of the stores, they left burning trails behind them (you know, because they left so fast). People scrambled like mad to get themselves some discount technology.
As a result of that, plus, some rumours of a need to use up remaining inventory and parts and such… HP announced just a couple weeks later that they’d make some more TouchPads for sale in the last part of this year.
My Proposition
One would assume that HP is going to be selling these for $399, or at the very least, higher than $99. They can’t possibly be intending to run all this manufacturing to churn out tablets that will make less money than it costs to make.
If that’s true, and keep in mind, I have no background in business or marketing or anything but, wouldn’t that be some really bad business thinking? To take a tablet that couldn’t sell, drop the price insanely low so that the people that did want one got it… and then to put more out there right back at the same price that they were before and didn’t sell?
My idea is this… donate them to special needs programs/schools. Or at the very least, sell it to them at a great discount.
Did you know that Apple used to market their computers to schools? They even donated (and still do) old computers that were used or no longer current to schools that could use them.
Not only is it great for public image, not only is it great for the company (donations are always beneficial) but when you think about it, how brilliant is it?
Well, think about all of those students using those machines for several years… when they need something similar at home, what are they going to use? When they graduate and need to use a computer.. what will they want to use?
Granted, that’s not really the focus for HP since WebOS probably won’t be around much longer nor will HP’s computer/tablet devices. But still, the idea is sound.
Special Needs schools, teachers and students need your help
Special needs schools have very little funding… certainly less than colleges. There is simply never enough money to get all of the supplies they need, sometimes they even can’t take as many children as they’d like.
And if there’s anything we’ve learned since the release of the iPad, special needs children can work miracles on a tablet!
They learn quicker, more easily and generally have more fun doing it when they have a device that they can touch and interact with.
I believe the number of apps on the iPad makes it the best choice but not the only choice. Any tablet would work.
If a school was given tablets, they could even hire developers to make what they need… since they could divert some funds from other supplies which would no longer be needed due to the tablets.
Please consider it
You’d be helping the special needs, helping the future and best of all, putting these devices to the best possible use they could ever have.
Don’t put them on a shelf where they’ll sit until you’re forced to drop the price again.
I’m not asking for me, I don’t need one. I’m asking for the community, for many communities… for the future.
Do something really great with this. It’s your moment to really shine.
If you work at or are involved with HP, thank you for reading.
If not, can you help me in getting this message to HP? I’d like for them to at least consider it. Thank you!
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i actually forwarded this article to hp ceo. hopefully it gets somewhere.
Yeah, I have a tablet now because of HP and the drop and I don’t intent to let it go anywhere. It’s probably a lifetime opportunity for me as we are always broke and tablets are expensive. This is just fine and we only got it for about 139 give or take.
Though I don’t think anywhere has them because everyone I knew had a HP touchpad and people were buying them like crazy.
Though it’s true, the touch pad hardly has any apps but I never really cared too much for them. I have a android phone and I rarely add any apps, my bf is the only one that is app crazy. Lol
The price points for this last run of HP Touchpads will likely continue to be $99 and $149, depending on the retailer. Smaller ones may charge a bit of a premium, but generally speaking, the prices will remain as low as they were during the fire sale.
The reason why HP will sell them at a loss when there’s no gain to be made is not because they saw demand for the product. They have large manufacturing facilities across the world, and assembly plants have a lot of parts on hand. HP was thinking, like everyone else in the tablet space, that they could sell a lot of their devices at a price similar to Apple’s iPad, so they ordered huge quantities of parts. The problem was, no one wanted anything that wasn’t an iPad if it was priced the same as an iPad.
So HP (and others) had a bunch of tablets made already, and there were still parts left. They halted production because their tablets were sitting in warehouses, collecting dust. Once HP declared their fire sale and all of their assembled inventory sold out, they still had the problem of what to do with the remaining inventory.
It’s not like they can just dump all of the parts, because the assembly plants are likely similar to Apple’s. Apple doesn’t own the facilities that produce iPads, but rather, they contract out work to these plants. HP likely does the same thing. It might just be a better choice for them to continue to produce Touchpads and sell them at a loss than pay whatever fee it is to cancel their contract with the assembly plant and toss out the extra parts. It might also get them some good will with some of their loyal customers too, who may be angry that HP is discontinuing their PC business.
As for the proposal… I don’t think the Touchpad is a good device in the classroom, for the reason “beautifullymindedx” cited above: there aren’t enough apps available. Never mind autism-centric apps, but total apps are much, much lower than what is available with the iPad.
This proposal would be better passed on to Apple. As mentioned, they are already pushing their products to schools, and although they have that iPad/teacher campaign going on (where they donate used iPads to teachers teaching in low-income areas), they themselves aren’t donating any old/refurbished iPads. And they likely won’t, for now at least, since they can still be sold through their Apple stores to customers.
But maybe you can send a short blurb to Apple’s new CEO around the time they’re expected to launch the iPad 3. By then, they’ll be selling old/refurbished iPad 2s instead of the original iPads, so they might be more inclined to donate some original iPads to schools then. But you have to remember, Apple is in the business of making money, and they won’t do so by giving out one of their most coveted products free to one of their largest markets, because then everyone will start requesting one.
I bought one of the HP touchpads when they were heavily discounted.
The HP Touchpad doesn’t have a lot of Apps available to it, which is partially why it didn’t do well. Any reasonable apps that would benefit a child need to be gotten through developer and programming means. It is mostly good for e-mail, internet, and calender functions.
But, they are unbreakable, so that is a plus.
When they dropped the price, those tablets sold like crack. I waited in line for 4 hours to get mine, and they were gone within 10 minutes. I don’t even know if it is possible to buy them anymore, since I know that HP sold their entire stock to Best Buy.
You make a good point. The other idea I had was put some type of advertisements on the tablets and continue to offer for $99. I would be willing to put up with advertisements instead of the option of not having a tablet.