Apparently, HP heard the crowd and acted fast. Rather than bury tablets in the desert Atari ET style, HP announced a fire sale over the weekend. The company's website listed the 16 GB model at $100 and the 32 GB version at $150. The plan worked.
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"Due to the significant price reduction, we experienced overwhelming demand for the product and are temporarily out of inventory," said HP's website Monday morning. "Please enter your email address below to be notified as soon as we have them back in stock."
Retailers followed suit, eager to empty their own warehouses before everyone forgets about the Touchpad. According to slickdeals.net, the deal hunters were fast and furious.
Amazon's Lightning Deal sold out of 16 GB models in 25 minutes. The 32 GB went in 4 minutes.
Fry's: Sold out. J&R: Sold out. MicroCenter: Sold out. Office Max: Sold Out. Radio Shack: Sold out. Sam's Club: Sold out. Target: Sold out.
Walmart is sold out online, but some location still allow for in-store pickup (for now, at least.)
So, will this swell of interest revive the HP tablet? Unlikely. The manufacturing experts at iSuppli estimated that the parts inside a Touchpad cost $306. Tack on the cost of designing, programming, shipping, supporting, and hiring Russell Brand to do the marketing. This sudden sale tried to stop a bad problem from getting worse, not to turn a crummy situation into a good one.
But here's the better question: Will this swell of interest revive webOS? Remember that moments before HP discontinued the Touchpad and all other webOS devices, Stephen DeWitt, HP's head of webOS, said that the company was very interested in licensing the operating system for cars and kitchen appliances
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