HP is cool with the Surface, has its own special sauce for tablets

While some vendors are losing sleep over Microsoft's Surface, HP has not been phased at all by the announcement from Redmond and in fact is encouraged by what the company is doing. While we don't expect HP to come out and say that they are scared of the Surface, as surely the company has the resources to build quality products, the statement from John Solomon, senior vice president of HP’s Americas region printing and personal systems division, is more bullish than we expected.

Solomon said that the relationship with Microsoft has not changed since the Surface announcement and they are bullish on what Microsoft is doing. Solomon stated the following to CRN:

I believe Microsoft was basically making a leadership statement and showing what’s possible in the tablet space,” Solomon told CRN. “Our relationship has not changed at all due to Microsoft’s announcement. In fact, I applaud it — I think it’s great that they are getting out in front and [demonstrating] what’s possible.

Of course, this could all change if Microsoft is able to lower the floor on the pricing of the Surface to the rumored, but hard to swallow, amount of $199. If Microsoft does deliver hardware at that price point and it is subsidized, HP may have a change of tune.

HP is not backing away from the tablet market either, we have already shown you one leaked slide of a tablet the company is working on and we expect that they likely have a few more up their sleeve.

HP goes on to say that they have their own unique technology that they will incorporate to the tablet market, Solomon states:

We will be very focused on the commercial tablet opportunity, which is completely under penetrated. And, we have some unique intellectual property that we're going to apply

We are looking forward to seeing what HP is able to come up with and how they will apply their own unique angle to this market. It won't be long until these devices hit retail shelves where we will finally get a solid look at what OEMs have been working on for the past year to fight for our hard earned cash. 

Source: CRN via: AllthingsD