Developer Week in Review: HP fires up the TouchPad production line one more time

HP's unique take on marketing, James Gosling leaves Google, and Apple continues its tavern distribution program.

Dear Waters Near Africa,

I know that you’re very proud of the tropical depressions that you raise, and I’m sure that watching your “little babies” develop must bring you a lot of joy. It pains me to tell you, however, that one of your offspring, I think her name is Irene, went on a bender last week and totally trashed our coast. And if that isn’t bad enough, I hear you have another little hellion called Katia eyeing our back yard with malice. If you can’t control your children, I’m afraid we’re going to have no choice but to call the police, or possibly NOAA, and ask them to do something about the situation. Thanks.

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In non-flood-related news …

At Crazy Bill Hewlett’s House of Tablets, we’re giving them away!

HP TouchPadWhen HP called it quits on its attempted iPad-killer, the TouchPad, most folks chalked it up to another attempt by an industry dinosaur to become one of the hip new kids. And it was no surprise that HP tried to clear its inventory by fire-saling the remaining inventory at a bargain-basement price.

What has everyone scratching their heads is that, as TouchPads disappeared off shelves at the low, low price of $99, someone over at HP decided it made sense to restart the production line and make more units to sell at the same discounted price. Given that the best estimates show HP losing around 200 clams per unit at that price, the company seems to be pursuing a somewhat questionable business model.

It may make sense if HP is trying to build interest in WebOS in front of a potential sale to buyers such as Samsung, though at least some buyers of the discounted units seem more interested in hacking them to run Android rather than stay with the native OS. In any event, if you’re interested, run out and get one before the last run sells out … Unless HP decides to do another last run …

There’s a joke about geese leaving the nest here, somewhere

Google has a history of acquiring big names in the industry to enhance its prestige as a leading software research organization. When Google hired James Gosling, who is considered one of the fathers of Java, it was seen as another feather in its cap, adding to a cadre that includes such notables as Mac pioneer Andy Hertzfeld (most recently responsible for designing the Circles feature in Google+) and Vim developer Bram Moolenaar.

It appears that for Gosling, Google wasn’t so much a destination as a rest stop, however. After only a few months on the job, he’s flown the coop, off to join a new startup designing autonomous ocean-going robots. If I had to guess, I’d say that Gosling decided he’d rather be a big fish at a small company solving a challenging and cool problem, as opposed to being part of a brain trust at a large one. Hey Google, I’m still available!

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Apple lost another phone?

While you’re pondering the wisdom of HP, here’s another puzzler to chew on. If you had just gotten over the embarrassment of having one of your top-secret product prototypes left in a bar, and ending up in the hands of Gizmodo, wouldn’t you make doubly sure that you kept track of where the next ones went?

Well, evidently, there’s a lot of after-hours drinking going on at Apple because, once again, a next-gen iPhone became separated from its owner at a watering hole.

The more cynical among the press have suggested that it’s actually all just a publicity stunt, though given that the police were brought in, I tend to doubt it since filing a false report is not a trivial charge. I blame the new iPhone Drinking Game App in iOS5. You know, the one where you have to take a drink whenever you pull out your phone to settle a trivia dispute at a bar.

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