According to this Wall Street Journal article HP is trying to revive its desktop sales with touch screens–specifically touch via its TouchSmart All-in-ones.
Unfortunately it’s not going so well:
“But the touch-screen PCs, which can cost twice as much as typical machines, have been slow to catch on. H-P only sold about 400,000 of its TouchSmart desktops last year, compared with 54 million traditional desktops and laptops, estimates research firm IDC.”
First, sales of any single computer compared to all computers is, well, silly. But setting that aside, the question for HP is: Is 400,000 TouchSmarts a good number?
I don’t think it’s bad. However, the article leads me to believe that HP is trying to revive its desktop business with Touch by going niche in the commercial space rather than trying to pump it up across the board.
Selling HP TouchSmarts as kiosks I don’t think is going to help much with overall sales. It’s not a terrible thing, but it’s not going to have a huge impact.
Of course, the question is will a TouchSmart device do well with Windows 7 coming down the road since it supports multi-touch just as the TouchSmart does? I have my doubts here too.
To me, the phenomenal opportunity is on the mobile side. Imagine a highly portable Windows 7 device that supports multi-touch and costs in the $400 range. I’m thinking a slate netbook here. To me that would be the game changer.