The Perils Of Being An Early Adopter

HP has recently managed several firsts in the Australian market. It has launched a touchpad, tablet Android competitor to many pills and overachieving Apple iPad 2, and thus launched the first device running WebOS on the Australian market. WebOS is an operating system originally developed by Palm - you can think of PalmPilot, the forerunner of today's wave of smart phones - and snapped by HP last year for what will be a variety of cell phones and tablet uređaja.Telefoni never officially to the Australian coast, but the $ 499 / $ 599 (16/32GB) TouchPad would be a first taste of WebOS for many consumers. It was officially launched by Harvey Norman with a blitz of advertising, and obviously within four days about 1200 sold touchpads. Not bad for a new entrant into the competitive space of tablets

then on the fourth day after its Australian launch, HP - U.S. based companies - announced the cessation of all development in the hardware world, WebOS, effectively killing the touchpad lines. In the U.S. this has led to the remaining shares, not selling, ranging from trade to U.S. $ 99 / $ 149 respectively, which is somewhat cheap. Locally, Harvey Norman announced it would offer a refund on any TouchPad customer who wanted one.

I saw the products do not succeed at the local level, but never a die quite quickly. Although it has a happy ending enough for those customers that have been offered compensation if they wanted one, it does point to one of the dangers of early adoption of technology. There is a certain cool factor is that new technologies first, especially if you can take advantage of your options first. I attended the launch of Apple iPhone 4, where hundreds and hundreds of customers lined up outside the Telstra, Optus and Vodafone / Tri store for the privilege of early adopters. That's how much fashion statement as a desire to get new features first, but it is still true that there can be advantages -. As long as you avoid the pitfalls of

early adopters have to deal with all the things that go wrong first, whether the software bug that makes things work unexpectedly, or a stray or poorly built hardware that little overheated, undercharges or just outright explode - although fortunately it is the latter case is extremely rare.

are also stung by the financial costs of an early adopter of the TouchPad in the case in Australia that led to the recovery, but while the $ 499 / $ 599 KS had trouble selling the TouchPad U.S., at $ 99 / $ 149 were sold out almost immediately. Prices on technology drops in fairly regular pattern, and often the best value you can get from the technology is easy to have a little patience.