HP loses the tablet battle, Apple victorious?

The CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Leo Apotheker, has announced they are killing off their tablet offering (the TouchPad) and their WebOS based product lines in general. From his statement: “The tablet effect is real and sales of the TouchPad are not meeting our expectations.”

TechCrunch sum the announcement up like this:

But wait, then why is he exiting the tablet space after only a matter of weeks? Because when Apotheker says “the tablet effect”, he really means “the iPad effect”.

Put another way, “Apple, you win.”

And not just in the tablet space. Again, the largest PC-maker in the world is exiting the space. Think about how crazy that is for a second.

It is crazy, for a few reasons. The TechCrunch article goes on to detail internal wrangling at HP and their position in the tech market, and asks the question “does this make HP look foolish, cowardly, or smart?”

Fair enough. But what about the impact on the tablet space, and the effect on Apple? I own an iPad and I’m generally an Apple fan, so I don’t say this out of an aversion to Cupertino. No, my concern is that a near monopoly on tablet devices isn’t a good thing. The power that Apple now wields with it’s phenomenally popular mobile devices and software (iPhone, iPad, iOS) is becoming scary, and lack of competition is surely bad in the long term. If a big hitter like HP doesn’t have the stomach to take on Apple, who will?