HP plans to switch to Android for its upcoming smartphones and tablets, ReadWrite Mobile reports citing sources familiar with the matter.
According to the report, HP will launch a high-end tablet powered by Nvidia's Tegra 4 chip "soon," which might make the device one of the first Tegra 4-powered tablets on the market. The company is also reportedly considering launching an Android-powered smartphone, though HP CEO Meg Whitman said the company has no plan to launch a smartphone in 2013.
If true, this would be a big shift in strategy for the once mighty PC maker, whose acquisition of Palm and its webOS platform in 2010 turned out to be a failure. After the webOS-based TouchPad tablet tanked, HP's tablet-related plans were unclear at best.
In fact, HP at one point even considered abandoning its bread and butter -- the PC business. HP dropped that plan, but still seems out of step with the mainstream computing business, which has made a radical shift to mobile computing. Can HP regain some of that market with Android-based smartphones and tablets? We're not sure, but the company has to do something if it wants to stay relevant.