TouchPad will be better than the No 1 tablet: HP

HP has tasted immense success in the personal computer market and wants to emulate the same in the mobile devices market as well.

Hewlett-Packard's TouchPad will be better than the number one tablet computer, the company's European head Eric Cador has said. 

While speaking at press conference in Cannes, Cador said that there are ample opportunities for HP to get the top spot and that the company would call its position "number one plus". 

HP has tasted immense success in the personal computer market and wants to emulate the same in the mobile devices market as well. 

Mobile operating systems are influencing desktops

The dividing line between the mobile and desktop operating systems is getting finer, and the two worlds are expected to merge eventually.

The mobile operating systems have been derived from their desktop counterparts. That's the reason the email application on the smartphones look very much like the desktop version. 

But, as the mobile operating systems maturing, they are in turn influencing the appearance of their desktop peers. 

Take the Mac App Store for example, in which the apps run full screen and it supports multi touch gestures (with the help of Magic trackpad) too — these two properties essentially originated in smartphones and now have made their ways to Mac computers.

The other companies also intend these two worlds to merge eventually. 

The WebOS operating system of Hewlett Packard was designed for mobile use, but HP is now trying to bring it for desktops and notebooks. And then there always is our favourite Windows 8 smartphone operating system, which is now proposed for the tablets as well. 

Too many operating systems? Innovation can come anytime

The mobile market is bursting with new operating systems, but like in any other business, the best ones will float while the ones that don't become popular will have no option but to go down.

There was a time when people used to perform simple functions such as making calls and sending SMSes with their mobile phones. Now people want their mobile phones to work like computers. They want to see and share photos with it, send email, browse the internet and more. That's why they need phones to have full fledged operating systems (just like computers do).

The arrival of smartphone operating systems started a long time ago. It was in 1996 that Palm OS was launched, and Pocket PC (Microsoft) arrived in 2000. 

Windows Mobile 5 and BlackBerry OS 4.1 came in 2005. Android was acquired by Google in the same year and iPhone was released in 2007. Android 1.0, BlackBerry OS 4.5, iPhone OS 2.0 and Windows Mobile 6.1—all came in 2008. Samsung bada was announced in 2009.

Despite the surfeit of smartphone operating systems, the market for them didn't really take off as Java based phones were popular at that time, and operating system-based phones barely had any applications, which meant that users had to manage with the apps their handset manufacturers gave them. If developers wanted to sell an app, they had to strike a deal directly with the manufacturer of the phone, which was very difficult.