Saturday, May 8, 2010

HP To Face Lenovo's ARM/Flash Problems?

If the "Hurricane" tablet HP is rumored to launch this summer is really an ARM/WebOS number, how would it deliver Flash support in the face of Lenovo's ARM/Flash issues?

Hypothesis: HP will declare Flash unfit for non-Intel machines and use Apple as an illustration that non-shipment of ARM should be accepted by the market. Else, HP has Adobe working on an ARM version that is ostensibly going to be ready by HP's ship date, and is being paid to promote Flash as "the real web". It's not likely HP really believes Flash is a competitive advantage over the long run – even current Flash supporters think Adobe's Flash is not the future of the web, but is a next-18-months phenomenon.

Might HP think Flash is an advantage over the next few quarters? Since content sources haven't prepared HP-tablet-specific apps for delivering streaming content yet, HP would have to rely on HTML5 migration if it didn't deliver an acceptably-working Flash plug-in.

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