Ah, HP!

You have got to give HP props for raining on the relentless Apple iTabletPCPodTouch/whatever parade with the announcement and display of the HP Slate by Stevie B at CES.

For the first time in like, forever, Microsoft delivered a masterstroke in marketing! As some of you will point out, it was due to HP’s influence.

That is true.

HP is one company that not only ‘gets’ social media, it has embedded it into the very messaging fabric of the company’s products.

At ShowStoppers 2010, HP’s reentry into camcorders and cameras was obvious with several models on display. HP also had a pocket projector on display, as well as the SimpleSave direct-attach storage drive. There was also a new, lower-entry model of the fabled z-series workstations, the z200, and several new professional displays as well.

The newly announced, touch-enabled netbooks, the Mini 5100 series were in full effect, as was the tm2 TouchSmart Tablet PC, the replacement for my tx2.

In all, HP has to be really impressed by the depth of their pipeline.

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