Windows Phone Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

In some ways this is one of those typical interviews where the interviewer asks question after question that he knows he's not going to get an answer to - such as specific questions about unreleased products - but it's worth watching if only to get an insight into the HTC mindset.

"HP's mobile strategy has recently left a few open questions in some analyst's heads. As TamsPPC has had an excellent relationship with HP ever since we debuted on a rx4240, we proudly present you this interview with Rudolf Gruber. Rudolf Gruber is the sales manager for mobile devices for HP Austria - he sat down with us for a no-holds-barred interview looking at topics like custom UI's, PDAs, the future of touchscreen devices and Windows Mobile 6.1 upgrades."

I want to commend Tom Hanna of TamsPPC for asking some necessary questions of HP and writing this article. That said, I was extremely disappointed with this interview; if anything, it reinforces my negative perception of HP. They refuse to go into detail about how they will differentiate themselves from the rest of the industry ("investing a lot of R&D"? Meaning?) and sidestep many of the issues (the WM6.1 "explanation" was particularly bad, in my opinion, even from a business standpoint). To be brutally honest, I think HP deserves its increasingly marginal role; it could have owned the entire handheld world a few years ago, but tossed it out the window, and still doesn't have a clue, despite making a few attractive devices. Is there anyone in our readership that plans to invest in HP mobile devices in the near future?