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Does the HP TouchPad have an Advantage in the Enterprise?

By: , 6/22/2011 6:16 pm | 25 comments

Larry Dignan, Editor-in- Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as ZDNet’s sister site TechRepbulic has an interesting piece up today titled “Assessing the corporate tablet field: Why the enterprise may be different”. In it he lays out a series of pros and cons for each potential tablet contender in addition to the primary criteria enterprise markets will look at when making their decisions. The two factors the article focuses on are bundling for price advantages and integration. Let’s take a quick look at those two areas in relation to HP and the TouchPad to see if they have what it takes to be a real contender in the corporate world.

Bundling

Fans of webOS have waxed long and eloquent about potential pricing advantages for consumers if webOS smartphones, particularly the HP Veer and Pre 3, were bundled with the soon to be available TouchPad. We think it’s a brilliant idea for saving consumers money as well as promoting a broader webOS user base. However, the numbers change exponentially when one considers the sheer number of possibilities HP has in the enterprise market for bundling the TouchPad with other goods and services they already provide in huge quantities, and even bigger dollar values than webOS has ever seen in the consumer market. Mr. Dignan suggests HP could bundle the TouchPad with PC’s, but why stop there? HP is uniquely positioned to bundle the TouchPad with webOS smartphones, PC’s with webOS, webOS printers and all manner of data centers, servers, high end ECOPod’s, cloud solutions and the list really does go on and on. None of the other tablet competitors have the connections in each of those enterprise markets to provide that number of connected devices all on the same ecosystem.

Integration

The second factor the article focuses on is integration. Obviously, integration is a huge topic in the enterprise that includes security, configuration control, and application compatibility. At HP’s Discover Event, CEO Leo Apotheker made it known that the kind of security enterprise requires would be available in the TouchPad – and by default, future webOS devices running the same versions of webOS. Further, HP indicated their commitment to ensuring configuration control both in the enterprise and in the consumer markets by keeping “developer mode” in place but offering a means for corporate IT managers to lock it out by password, thus allowing them to configure the device as they see fit for their corporate environment. They also made clear that security policies would still be able to be pushed through exchange as they are now and hoped to expand the options available. webOS is truly the most open and configurable mobile platform available in this regard.

One other very important aspect of integration is applicaton compatibility. webOS is cited to be at a disadvantage by most in this regard due to its relatively small Application Catalog. However, in the large corporate environment, HP already has several major players on board with webOS application development for the market; big names like SAP, Mobile Iron, and Citrix to name a few. Citrix has been written about here on webOSroundup many times already as a big webOS partner with Citrix Receiver. In a nutshell, Citrix allows customers access to over 500,000 applications they already run on their desktop computers that are compatible with the Receiver application. This may not mean much to the average consumer but what it means to the corporate client is all of their apps like Microsoft Office can work with the TouchPad right out of the box.

Given the factors on which Dignan’s article focuses, it would seem HP does indeed have an advantage in this space. The question remains though, whether or not they will capitalize on it by utilizing all the options they have available. Only time will tell. Fortunately for us, that time is drawing nearer by the day.

[Source: ZDNet]

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About Rich Dunbar

Rich is Sr. Editor at webOSroundup and mobileRoundup as well as a husband, father of 4, webOS Ambassador and webOS Developer who loves all things webOS and Harley Davidson. You can find him on Twitter as @RichDunbar
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  • David W.

    Another big advantage is that most companies already have web devs on staff, even the firms that outsource most if not all of their other software development. If you know anything at all about web development, you can build things in Enyo (I’ve tried, and it’s as easy as HP says it is). Companies can have existing employees can build custom, in-house Touchpad apps rather than having to outsource things or hire an Objective-C developer like they would for custom iPad apps.

    If HP sells on that angle, they could take the enterprise by storm. Enyo is that good.

  • http://profiles.google.com/anayagamingllc Jason Buffalo

    I do not agree with HP has a disadvantage with Application Compatibility, matter the Fact HP has a major Advantage in that Area with Businesses,those Consumer Tech Gurus need to stop looking at what is there, and start looking at what HP can offer, for one HP is like IBM, they provide Services to Businesses, if a Application is not Compatible, HP will have a staff on hand to help to get this Business integrated with WebOS, Apple can not do that,Google can not do that,HP whole Enterprise Experience and reach is far greater then Apple and Google combined,Leo connection with SAP is another Advantage for HP,but in the end when it comes to the enterprise sector there is only one Competition and that is RIM, and from the looks of it, it’s starting to go under.
    HP made good choice to go after the enterprise sector over consumers,and they should have a easy entree into that field.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Edwin-Mauricio/100000496164725 Edwin Mauricio

    Creo que con el touchpad no deberiamos preocuparnos de las apps, ya que según los minoristas el touchpad  contara con 15.000 apps en su lanzamiento … fuente webosania y http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/ipad-and-tablets/hp-touchpad

    en la parte de Hp Apps Catalogue 15000 apps..

  • Raun

    As great an opportunity as hp has in the enterprise, it is still going to tank in the consumer market. Then we will see hp’s commitment.

    • Rich

      Oh stop it with the FUD already. It stands a better chance than other other tablet competitor yet. If it does well in the enterprise that will carry over to the consumer market.

      • Raun

        Enterprise adoption takes years based on development of custom apps not yet envisoned much less tested, so hp’s commitment will be tested. This product is doa in the consumer arena at least until new phones are ready for tts feature.

  • Al

    Sure it is a good stratagy for HP but to the average consumer all the news of late means HP all but admits they can not take on Apple or Google.

    This is why the emphisis on enterprise it’s the only place HP has a chance and this all but confirms HP knows this.

    It also explains why they have been giving us consumers the shaft big time they don’t care.

    • Rich

      That’s ridiculous. HP hasn’t placed the emphasis there. I wrote an article based on a ZDNet article. There was clearly some talk of webOS at HP Discover but not the emphasis I would have liked to have seen. But HP would be foolish to not pay attention to the enterprise it is a place with mega bucks. If you want webOS to stick around then success in the enterprise is a must. So far ALL of their marketing dollars have been consumer focused.

      • Marv

        They have no choice but to go after the business sector they have no apps for consumers. This is the same old business plan they had when they made windows based smartphones which failed miserably

        • Rich

          They have plenty of apps for consumers. I have gotten along just fine for 2 years with the apps I have available as well as the core apps on the platform. Besides that, have you seen the webOS 3.0 app catalog to say they don’t have any apps, new apps in particular built just for the TouchPad?

      • David Huss

        You don’t market to big corporations with advertisements on TV. They already have a network of reps that will visit the decision makers, demo the product, take execs out to lunch/golfing/get them drunk/whatever. Smaller businesses might benefit from an ad in the wall street journal, etc., but utilizing direct marketing is a much better idea.  

        • Rich

          Yes, I am aware. I was pointing out to the person that I replied to, that they have been spending their advertising $ on consumer marketing (as they should be).

      • David Huss

        You don’t market to big corporations with advertisements on TV. They already have a network of reps that will visit the decision makers, demo the product, take execs out to lunch/golfing/get them drunk/whatever. Smaller businesses might benefit from an ad in the wall street journal, etc., but utilizing direct marketing is a much better idea.  

      • David Huss

        You don’t market to big corporations with advertisements on TV. They already have a network of reps that will visit the decision makers, demo the product, take execs out to lunch/golfing/get them drunk/whatever. Smaller businesses might benefit from an ad in the wall street journal, etc., but utilizing direct marketing is a much better idea.  

  • http://www.facebook.com/levi.pelikan Levi Pelikan

    I’m amazed to see a positive WebOS article on ZDNet. Good for them.

    • eid

      There was this positive webOS article on ZDNET then another one saying Touchpad was DOA.  Actually the latter was not as critical as the title sounded but said that Touchpad had to cut its price down $100 lower to compete with Ipad. 
      HP needs to go on its strength enterprise  and get into pro-consumer market that way.  HP leadership won’t continue to support consumer webOS if webOS devices don’t do well and generate sales so enterprise push is really necessary. 

  • Jmills

    Don’t forget, the Department of Defense has regulations for anyone contracting under them, that they cannot use open source programming. That knocks Android firmly out of a lot of businesses, I’m not sure, but I think that regulation may be more than just the DoD.

  • Mr. H

    How will HP address companies that use Sprint for their carrier?  Touchpad will be useless to them.

    • BLaZe0023

      The current model of Touchpad is WiFi… How does that make Sprint customers illegitimate? Maybe once Sprint does convert to LTE a 3G or 4G model will appear.

      • Mr. H

        So that’ll make Touch to Share a moot point?  

    • Rich

      Obviously HP and any other company in the mobile communications industry wants their products on every carrier possible. But why isn’t the question framed this way. “How will Sprint address companies that want webOS devices as part of their mobile business strategy?” For that matter, how will Sprint address customers who want to purchase and use webOS devices? The answer seems clear so far. They will continue to ignore them and figure they will eventually shut up and move to one of the many Android devices they carry.

      • Mr. H

        Good point. Let’s address the question to Sprint.

      • Mr. H

        Good point. Let’s address the question to Sprint.

      • Mr. H

        But is android secure in the enterprise?  Is it a good business solution or just another phone with a lot of cool apps?

  • Marv

    Evo 3d