Wasting no time rebranding the name of the company it just acquired, HP has received a trademark for the name PalmPad, which almost guarantees that will be the name for the company’s flagship tablet computer.
By using the Palm name, it also is pretty much a guarantee that it will run on Palm’s WebOS operating system, which had previously just been used on mobile phones.
According to the trademark filing, the PalmPad will be used for “computers, computer hardware, computer software, computer peripherals, portable computers, handheld and mobile computers, PDAs, electronic notepads, mobile digital electronic devices.”
Before it decided to buy out the fledgling Palm company, HP had been working on a tablet called the “Slate” with different versions running on Windows 7 and Google’s Android. It has since indefinitely delayed the launch of those tablets.
The name PalmPad of course implies that it will be a rival to Apple’s iPad, which has seen a surprisingly little amount of competition since it went on sale earlier this year. Following the iPad’s successful launch, several companies announced similar multimedia tablets but later went on to cancel those projects.
For HP, it could be a game changer. It is also a very wise transition device between computers, the company’s bread and butter, and mobile phones, with which it has no prior experience. There’s still no work on when an HP-branded phone will be released, but it’s likely they will start to enter the retail space next year.
