Remember HP CEO Meg Whitman's comments last month stating that her company needed to get [back] into the smartphone market in order to be successful on the global stage? While Whitman is certainly open to the idea of releasing another HP-branded smartphone, it's not coming any time soon.
"We don't have any plans to introduce a smartphone in 2013, but we've got to start thinking about what is our unique play, how do we capture this element of the personal computing market," said Whitman yesterday during a briefing on the company’s 2013 outlook.
The fact that Whitman and HP are still trying to wrap their heads around what makes a successful smartphone is quite troubling. Apple and Google already have the market cornered with iOS and Android respectively in the smartphone game.
RIM is increasingly becoming a non-factor in the smartphone business, but it hopes to turn its fortunes around with BB10. And Microsoft has gone from being a frontrunner with its Windows Mobile operating system has become an also-ran with the Windows Phone platform.
Whitman went on to add, "I believe that five years from now, if we don't have a smartphone or whatever the next generation of that device is, we'll be locked out of a huge segment of the population in many countries of the world."
