HP confirms Palmpad name? iPad rival secrets spilled!

HP has been talking webOS tablets since it snapped up Palm earlier in the year. Since the HP Palm deal was inked, we’ve seen oodles of rumours about what the first offspring of the union will be called. The prime candidate has been PalmPad and an HP exec appears to have confirmed it…

Earnings calls are often a good source of info on new products as loose-lipped executives get caught off-guard. During a call with a gaggle of analysts (we’re not actually clear on that collective noun), HP Executive Vice-President Todd Bradley dropped the PalmPad name into conversation:

“We’ve already announced the expansion of our future product portfolio well beyond smartphones. We’ll have a webOS-powered PalmPad that will be set for release early in 2011.”

The PalmPad monicker was spotted in an HP trademark filing earlier this year but that’s the first time an executive has used it in public. It certainly looks like it’s a goer but as we saw with the Blackberry Playbook, codenames can easily change.

Bradley also confirmed during the call that HP has shipped 200 employees over to Palm to work on the PalmPad project. Hopefully that means we’ll be able to get to see the fruits of their labours soon.

What do you reckon? Is PalmPad the right name for HP’s first webOS tablet? Or do you have a better name to propose for the as-yet-unseen iPad rival?

Out TBC | £TBC | HP (via PalmCentral)

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