Surprise: HP squeezes every possible cent out of the broken TouchPad

The $99 TouchPad Fire Sale was the best way to close the book on webOS and the TouchPad itself. It put the TouchPad in the hands of fans. Only those who cared about the product lined up outside of Best Buy to get their hands on it snagging one of the cheap notebooks. It's also safe to say that most of these people aren't interested in HP's Crapware notebooks. These people just wanted a solid tablet at a good price.

HP, you should have taken your win and gone home. But you didn't. You screwed up. Again.

The history of the TouchPad is sad. A product born of Palm's inspiring vision for the future of mobile devices and HP's experience at conquering innovation. Despite a solid operating system, the product landed with a bang and webOS diehards only opted for the $499 TouchPad.HP announced just 7 weeks after launch that it would stop all webOS hardware development and ditch the remaining $99 offering that sold out almost overnight.

The story all along was that another batch of TouchPads was coming. Retailers and even the HP website had sign-up pages to let potential buyers know about available TouchPads. But here we are, a few months later, and the TouchPad for 99 US dollar has not reappeared.

The TouchPad has popped up randomly at various retailers, however, but there's often one big caveat. Best Buy got a round of $150 32GB touchpads late last month, but they were only available with an HP notebook. Then Tiger Direct (and sister site Circuit City) started selling the TouchPads, but only with an expensive accessory bundle, bringing the price up to $279. Then, just today, Office Depot's Black Friday ad leaked the shows a TouchPad deal similar to Best Buy; Buy an HP PC and get a 32GB TouchPad for $150.

All you know is that somewhere deep in the corporate machine HP, an overpaid executive and his team of cronies invented this plan. “People want the TouchPad, right? we're going to force people to buy one of our cheap, adware-filled notebooks. Oh, and we're going to support the TouchPad, or maybe support it half-heartedly for the laggards.”

This isn't about capitalism or free trade. HP had a chance to make some friends and earn some goodwill. The TouchPad is clearly worth nothing to HP. That's what the first fire sale showed. Now they're using it as bait, wagging it in front of potential buyers just hoping to get someone to buy one of their crappy notebooks. HP has every right to make money, but sometimes it's worth giving up a bit of extra revenue to earn respect. After After years of self-destructive behavior, HP deserves more respect than anything else.