[glhaynes]

Even if they sold 1 million of them at a loss, that'd still put them about 30 million units behind Apple - so still a distant loser, especially with Android being in the game too. Besides, then all they'd have bought is a chance at selling to roughly that same small group again next year, again at a loss because most of the folks that only bought this year because it was super-cheap aren't going to be willing to buy at $500 next year.

The key to a sustainable platform is to make a profit on each device or be able to make it up with highly profitable post-device sales (video games for consoles or blades for razors).

[mgkimsal]

"Android" is not a standard hardware platform - it's pretty much whatever any manufacturer wants to ship. The TouchPad had the potential to be much more akin to the iPad/iOS line because one company was controlling the hardware experience.

[glhaynes]

I agree it had that potential in theory, but in practice it had nearly none of the market advantages of the iPad. It didn't have the Apple (or iPod / iPhone) brand name to catapult off of nor a large base of users that already own similar devices; it didn't have many apps nor much developer support; and, importantly, it didn't have the iTunes ecosystem of easily-obtained media. It'd be awfully tough to out-Apple Apple right now. Without some really strong differentiator, I don't know why anybody - least of all those at HP - would have thought they had a chance.