Even the most creative of strategists would have a hard down pinning down HP's approach to TouchPad post launch.

Dropped before the glue had dried on the tablet's in-store promo posters, the company has since spent the intervening months switching back and forth between canning the handset altogether, or selling off webOS and equipping TouchPad with a new OS.

Outside of the company's internal struggles however – which have included the appointment of a new CEO, to boot – one tactic that paid off looks to have stuck: people buy tablets when they're cheap.

What's (not) in store

As such, HP is planning to run one final firesale for TouchPad before it vanishes into the ether, albeit this is using up the firm's remaining stock of refurbished units rather than fresh ones.

Revealed via an internal email to staff, HP will sell the 16GB and 32GB versions for $99 and $149 respectively, as before, with customers limited to two purchases each.

"Specifically, the TouchPads will be offered through one of HP's newest marketplaces for close-out and refurbished HP products, the new HP eBay Store," the company revealed in said email.

"This product will NOT be available through any other HP stores, such as the Home & Home Office store, Small & Medium Business store, HP EPP or the HP Business Outlet."

Employees will be offered first dibs on the "very limited supply of refurbished TouchPads", sold via HP's eBay store on December 11 at 6pm CT.

HP had planned to construct an artificial delay between the sale going live and customers on the site being notified, though the aforementioned email leak would appear to have put pay to that.

[source: webOSroundup.com]