Apple, HP Moves Suggest Tablet War Heating Up

Apple made its iPad available for pre-order March 12, effectively kicking off the long-brewing battle between various manufacturers over the newborn segment for mass-consumer tablet PCs.

Apple made its iPad available for pre-order March 12, effectively kicking off the long-brewing battle between various manufacturers over the newborn segment for mass-consumer tablet PCs.
The Apple iPad’s Oscar debut on millions of TVs may have been the talk of the town Monday morning, but not for long. Rival PC maker HP has launched a sneak attack on the iPad.
Lenovo’s ThinkPad X201s beaten by 20 minutes with EliteBook 2540p’s 12.5-hour runtime
Hewlett-Packard on Monday launched its first mainstream business laptop with a touchscreen, but said it would be cautious in bringing touch technology to its existing business laptop lines.
Apple’s iPad announcement has not deterred PC competitors, as HP’s forthcoming 3G-enabled “slate PC” will reportedly be competitively priced, and Microsoft is still working on its unannounced Courier dual-screen tablet.

Steve Ballmer took the wraps off the promising Windows Phone 7 Series at the Mobile World Congress wireless trade show in Barcelona, an upgrade which Microsoft’s CEO is counting on to reverse the company’s sagging fortunes in mobile.

Hewlett-Packard’s first smartbook, the Compaq AirLife 100, announced on Friday, could be a rival to Apple’s iPad as the two companies aim to attract buyers looking for netbook alternatives, analysts said.

The unveiling of IBM (NYSE:IBM)’s new POWER7 and Intel (NSDQ:INTC)’s new Itanium 9300 processors on Monday come at a time when demand for traditional Unix servers, which are based on such processors, is gradually declining.

Intel and Micron have reached a new breakthrough in NAND flash production. The 25nm NAND flash process will enable the manufacturers to double current flash memory capacity, or squeeze the same memory into half the space, enabling advances in storage capacity for the devices that business professionals rely on.
HP’s music plan
– Hewlett-Packard announced a new online music service in Europe on Monday called HP MusicStation. The service will cover 10 countries in Europe and will build off the work of British music provider Omnifone.