After the demise of the HP Touchpad last week it has emerged that Microsoft is striking while the iron is hot and are trying to woo WebOS devs to come and make apps for its own Windows Phone 7.
The famous saying states that when one door shuts another opens – and this is so true for the HP Touchpad. Over the weekend HP had a fire-sale of its remaining stock cutting the price to as little as $100 in the US and the discounts are expected hit the UK Tuesday morning.
This has caused several electrical retailers’ sites to crash under the sheer demand. Ironically the sale will probably make the numbers of WebOS users reach as critical mass where it could be actually be a viable alternative to Honeycomb and iOS.
Well when Microsoft see’s an opportunity it usually takes it. And they are now wooing devs with free devices, tools and training to “any published webOS devs”. Though all signs indicate webOS will live on, the road ahead just became even more grueling.
Microsoft’s Senior Director of Windows Phone 7 development, Brandon Watson, spoke volumes in his 140 character tweet this morning. The news of his invitation for published webOS devs to join team Windows Phone spread like wildfire. Currently there are just under 30,000 apps in the Windows Marketplace. Far less than either Android or iOS, but still a sizable collection.
Let’s just wait and see how many of the 6,200 webOS apps are ported over to Windows Phone. With any luck we’ll have a three pony tablet race on our hands by the end of year.
You can get a HP Touchpad substantially cheaper from Tuesday morning and with a price one fifth of its retail price and you’d be a fool not to try and pick one up.
With devs already trying to get Android and Linux on the beleaguered slate – it could turn out to be sale of the century.
Are you tempted by a dual core tablet for under a £100? Let us know by tweeting us or where you picked one up from at the discounted price.