HP terms Slate 500 a Business Tablet

HP had surprised the tech world with it announcement of immediate retail availability of its Windows 7 Slate 500 tablet computer. Although the iPhone revolution has all but erased the distinction between consumer and business when it comes to mobile devices, the marketing strategy for the Slate 500 tablet seems to be to target it as a "business tablet".

That strategy automatically implies two things. First, that HP does not wish to compete with the iPad so it wants to draw a distinction between its target audience and Apple tablet. Second, that HP is suggesting that the Apple iPad and the Samsung Galaxy Tab are not capable of filling the role of business tablets.

Several features of HP SLATE 500 differentiate it from the iPad. The HP tablet has front and rear-facing cameras. It has a USB port and an SD memory card slot. But, then again so does virtually every other tablet that isn't the iPad, and most of those missing features are expected to show up in the iPad 2.0 sometime in early 2011.

The specs on the HP Slate 500 are impressive for a tablet. The HP tablet exceeds the minimum Windows 7 system requirements of 1 GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage capacity.

Like the iPhone before it, the iPad has defied attempts to box it with labels. It has already been widely embraced as a mobile business tool, and there are numerous apps designed to extend that functionality. Even for unique cases like those HP is targeting, tools like Array Networks DesktopDirect--which has both an iPhone and an iPad app--enable users to seamlessly work with their Windows desktop remotely and access those customized and proprietary applications.

In both form and function, it is difficult to clearly discriminate a business tablet from a consumer tablet. It does seem that the iPad, the Samsung Galaxy Tab, and the Dell Streak are aimed at consumers, while the HP Slate 500, the BlackBerry PlayBook, and the Cisco Cius all have a more business angle in terms of marketing—but no clear difference could be identified.

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