Hewlett-Packard (HP) has announced it plans to re-enter the tablet market with a new Windows 8-powered Slate device.

The Bangkok Post reported the news from this year's Global Influencer Summit, where HP CEO Meg Whitman explained that the move was designed to capitalise on the massive growth in tablet sales.

The announcement lends credibility to recent rumours that a total of 32 Windows 8 tablets will be released in 2012, including offerings from HP, Intel, Toshiba, and Dell.

False start

HP's previous effort in the tablet space – the webOS-powered TouchPad – launched in July 2011. The TouchPad failed to meet HP's sales expectations, and after only two months on sale the company discontinued the device.

Since then, a former HP CTO has publicly criticised the company's quick abandonment of the TouchPad, claiming that HP had given its webOS team three years to position itself in the market. The discontinuation of webOS and the TouchPad came only 15 months into that timeframe.

Now that HP is backing the Windows 8 platform (which includes a tablet version of Microsoft Office on its ARM-compatible version Windows RT) the manufacturer may have better luck shifting Slates, particularly to enterprise users.

[source: Bangkok Post]