CEO Meg Whitman said that HP together with PSG will be stronger.

Eventual changes to webOS hardware have not been mentioned.

This statement confirms a change of the decision made by the former CEO of the company, Leo Apotheker, in August. The general feeling was that his forced exit was determined by this particular decision. Many interpreted that Apotheker tried to recreate a business model of SAP, his previous employer, from the inside. Whitman produced confusion when saying that plans were still viable and the problem was not the decision itself but its execution.

Hewlett Packard’s rivals are believed to have hoped to the company splitting off the PC division. The group would have become a target for a sale and they could have bought market share. By distancing the new created company from the Hewlett Packard name, the PSG would become weaker, less familiar, and the safety net provided by the larger HP in case of trouble would be eliminated.

Many had failed to understand why HP would willingly give up what is considered probably the most successful PC group in the world. Apotheker had acknowledged that a certain iPad effect was visible in cutting into HP’s notebook and netbook sales. However, the company still leads in worldwide PC market share and is not seeing a rapid drop like Acer and other netbook-heavy companies do.

The mockup of the application, presented in the slide, did not seem to reflect the behavior of the real application. According to what HP had promised, the service would not be exclusive to the TouchPad, as it would eventually reach webOS phones, such as the Veer and Pre3.

Although not yet confirmed by Hewlett Packard, the PC builder acquired Melodeo and the desktop-to-mobile Internet music sharing technology in 2010, a short time after its intention to buy Palm became obvious. Hewlett Packard has promised to help the Palm team by providing webOS with financial support, but it was less clear until now what this help would mean. Most of the company’s public declarations concentrated on carrier and retail deals Palm could not afford before being bought out.

The TouchPad is expected to come in June and could represent a symbolic victory if the cloud service is activated on launch. Apple has made public its plans to switch on a massive datacenter for MobileMe and iTunes, which is supposed to result in an online media locker for iOS devices and iTunes. Google has also said it has been developing a service called Google Music since last spring at Google I/O. however, numerous delays have given clues about abandoning these plans, following problems with labels.

The 8760w has a 17.3-inch, 1,080-pixel display. It can be configured to support up to three hard drives as well as RAID 5. The 8560w notebook includes a 15.6-inch high-definition display and either AMD FirePro graphics and 1GB of VRAM or the NVIDIA Quadro graphics and 2GB of VRAM. The other member of the series, the 8460w, is the lightest mobile workstation and weighs 4.9 pounds. It has a 14-inch high-definition display, AMD FirePro graphics and 1GB of VRAM.

The Z210 workstations are dedicated to video editors, users of MCAD/AEC or others working in education, image viewing industries or public sector. At entry-level, they focus on providing high value for money. They are equipped with Xeon E3 processors from Intel or second-generation Core i3, i5 or i7 chipsets, which depend on the configuration.

The models in the Z210 range offer professional graphics options, which include 2D choices from NVIDIA and AMD, incorporating dual graphics card features that are able to support a maximum of four 2D displays. When it comes to 3D choices, next-generation processor-integrated high-definition graphics from Intel lower the entry cost necessary for professional 3D graphics. Entry or midrange graphics from AMD and NVIDIA are also available.

Starting prices for the 8460w, 8560w and 8760w are $1,299, $1,349 and $1,899 respectively. They are expected to ship in May in the United States. The Z210 workstations would be available this spring. Prices vary from $569 for the Z210 SFF Workstation up to $659 for the Z210 CMT Workstation.

The TouchPad is expected to be released in June, with prices probably ranging between $500 and $700 depending on several rumors. The tablet will feature a dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon and notably faster Adreno 220 graphics. The TouchPad sports an integrated front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera, as well as a large 6,300mAh battery which is said to provide almost 10 hours of use.

Other analysts question the possible impacts if the famous Steve Jobs is no more able to lead Apple. Rob Enderle, Enderle Group analyst, suggested that the short-term consequences will be negligible, but the long-term effects could be more serious. Enderle said that every two years Apple has to fill the store with new stuff and that without the CEO Steve Jobs, this will be much harder for the company.

Apotheker said that webOS plans on PCs may see a beta version available by late 2011. Moreover, the full rollout will be out sometime next year.

This goal seems pretty ambitious for the company, which took over Palm at a time when its share was getting smaller and has since immersed to almost four percent in the USA. On the other hand, HP has committed itself to the platform and even plans to get it into devices where a mobile operating system is still rare (for example, printers). Palm is generally believed to have suffered from a lack of funds and scale that forced the company to follow only limited deals and limited the reach of Palm’s marketing.

Apple has just reached about 100 million iPhones shipped in March. However, the company has reached this figure for all iOS hardware in 2010.

The Pre3, Veer and TouchPad will be practically the only main mobile devices beyond RIM and Apple to have both the hardware and operating system under its control; this technique is allowing exclusive tricks (for example, special applications which run when a device is on its Tocuhstone dock or the option of pushing a certain website from a webOS handset to the TouchPad to read it on the larger display, only by moving the two devices close together).

Jon Oakes, director of product marketing at HP, declared that his company has observed some mysterious resemblances between the tow tablets. On the other hand, Jeff McDowell, Senior Vice President for business and platform marketing at RIM, rejected the notion that RIM copied some of the design elements.

Oakes declared for Laptop Magazine that there is a fast innovation cycle, as well as a fast replication cycle in the tablets market. He said that HP owns the creative engine to continue building on what they already have and that the company will keep on innovating. He says that RIM should see the value in HP’s work and maybe follow them by about a year or so.

McDowell angrily replied that RIM has set out from the ground to define a special user experience according to their users’ desires, but the company landed in a place which could look like other competitive gadgets. He explained that cars, for example, end up looking very alike over time, as they are put through a wind tunnel and companies then try to bring up the best coefficient to drag ratio and always find one optimized shape which has the best wind resistance.

The extent of the argument between HP and RIM somehow seems to currently be limited to casual competition rather than the start of a legal conflict.

Speaking about performance, it is now clear that the gap between Apple’s tablet and its competitors is virtually non-existent. RIM’s PlayBook is no more the faster tablet, since the dual-core processor used by Apple is just as fast. It is not easy to imagine how the A5 chip of the iPad 2 and the PowerVR SGX543 graphics can stack up, but the speed boost and its 1,080-pixel support makes it very competitive. Hewlett Packard claims a faster 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor on its TouchPad, but unfortunately the ship date is in summer, so that its boasting is only on paper so far.

Camera support is a more difficult element to estimate. Apple has now both back and front cameras and therefore has an edge on HP’s TouchPad with its front-only design. However, Apple did not specify what resolution either camera will have, but only said the rear camera would be a backside-illuminated CMOS sensor and would shoot 720-pixel video, while the camera situated on the front side would shoot VGA. If things are like this, it would still trail the Xoom and PlayBook on sheer resolution, since both are equipped with five-megapixel back cameras, while the Xoom has a two-megapixel and the PlayBook has a three-megapixel front camera, which are more useful when using front shots. The quality of the image is still to be proved, though, as it seems the cameras of the Xoom are not as refined as the numbers indicate.

Evaluating battery life is also a difficult task, but Apple should have an edge on its competitors, thanks to the iPad’s ten hours of battery. However, Research in Motion promises to outlast the iPad 2, while the TouchPad is too distant to compare. The battery life of the Xoom is mixed, as it can last longer if only browsing the web, but is significantly hurt when playing videos.

Apple’s tablet is not the most portable of all four. The seven-inch PlayBook certainly makes it easier to carry, but the iPad is definitely the lightest for a comparable size, as the others also weigh 1.5 or 1.6 pounds but are thicker.

Ironically, Apple has to struggle harder in software. Apple’s iOS is still one of the most convenient to use and one of the most responsive. Pinch-to-zoom in the browser or a rapid flip through home screens even on the original iPad is not equaled by Android 3.0 tablets, even the fastest one, the Galaxy Tab 10.1. The PlayBook is the only one that seems to run as smoothly. However, the current form of iOS 4.3 does not go as deeply. It does not have full multitasking, while this is the strong point for the PlayBook, webOS and Android 3.0. All three also have more detailed and subtler notification systems, with a special mention for Google.

When we come to application policies, it is clear that Apple has the stricter regulation on its mobile application portal and on what third-party applications can do, but neither Android 3.0 or webOS is more open.

None of that is, however, more important than price. With its 32GB of storage and comparable 3G, the iPad 2 is a hardware match for Motorola’s Xoom, but is priced $70 less. It gets even worse if 3G is not needed or 16GB of storage would be enough, as the entry iPad is only $499 and is more affordable as to belong to a totally different category.

Some of Apple’s competitors certainly have to worry. Motorola has an $800 price for its Xoom on Verizon, but now has to explain the extra cost, which will not be an easy task. The company has a Wi-Fi Xoom model in the works, but a release date is still uncertain and therefore the new device could come too late to be helpful. Both Hewlett Packard and Research in Motion have a price limit too.

Hard times are coming for RIM especially. If it does not ship with a native mail client, a price close to $499 may place it out of contention. It would not have 3G or 4G models until much later, too. It will be difficult to justify the same price as an iPad 2 without offering the same performance.

While some genuine advancements in tablets coming from Android, webOS and BlackBerry Tablet OS are really appreciated, competitors like Samsung, LG and others have lost many of their advantages. The best choice for those users who want to have a really independent device may be Android 3.0. However, the iPad 2 might simply be the best balanced device as it has good performance and features that are matched with a very convenient price.

It is necessary to have this emulation since full-size applications using webOS 3 have to use the Enyo development platform. Its kit has just been released. Enyo supports different screen sizes as well as an onscreen keyboard.

The new smartphones of Hewlett Packard, the Veer and Pre3, are supposed to run webOS 2.x and to continue to support legacy applications without requiring special support. This move presents the risk of fragmenting webOS development temporarily, since those with older applications have to port to Enyo or otherwise need to develop separate versions dedicated to the TouchPad.

Both devices use a 23-inch, 1,080-pixel display and get an unusual accent on sound by using the Beats audio from notebooks and towers. There is also a new spin for software through LinkUp, which is an application that allows users to share applications between desktops and notebooks.

The TouchSmart 610 has a 3.2GHz Core i3 processor, a 750GB hard drive, 4G of RAM and Intel integrated video. The higher-end version has a similarly clocked processor Core i5, a 1TB hard drive and 6GB of memory. The TouchSmart 9300 is designed for business and has the option to be wall mounted, turned into a kiosk or otherwise made ready for the public. Hewlett Packard did not give specifications, but the processor would be scaled from Core i3 to i7 and there would be options for other operating systems. A 160GB SSD and 16GB of RAM complete the list of features.

The TouchSmart 610 will ship on February 9 at a price of $900, while the 9300 would not be ready until May and its price would be set closer to the release time. The delay of the 9300 is attributed in part to the Sandy Bridge chipset flaw that affects the performance of SATA. There is already a fix available from Intel but the production could not be restored before two months.

The release of the two PCs is representative for the attempts to get desktops with fully integrated touch. Hewlett Packard has been one of the first to adopt touchscreen for desktops and enjoyed enough success with its TouchSmart line as to continue it for many years. However, it has not become the company’s dominant desktop and has even been criticized sometimes for supposed limited utility. Apple was among those who objected to touchscreens used outside tablets and phones, arguing that touch requires a horizontal position and not a vertical one. Its solution ahs been to equip traditional controllers with multitouch, as in the case of the Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad or notebook trackpads.

MSI has an even better technical solution than HP in its Butterfly concept, but has not committed to shipping PCs.