[hugh]

After announcing that demand for its HP Slate had "exceeded expectations," it has now leaked out that HP only planned to build 5,000 and ended up having to retool to build a total of 9,000 of them.

Compared to the average 46,555 iPads Apple sold per day over the last quarter (during constrained supplies), a total run of 9,000 isn't exactly the kind of demand tablet observers would describe as "exceeding expectations," instead positioning the Slate PC in the same dismal category of failure trailblazed by Microsoft's Zune and KIN phone.

 

[Francois Caron]

Ouch! Only 9,000? Taking that number into account, how much does that make the production cost for each unit?

 

[ScaryBob]

It must suck to be an HP Slate owner right now. A market base of 9000 units doesn't inspire much in the way of third party support or even ongoing HP support. I've been there with other PC products that failed to catch on.