I think your analysis is WAY off.
The Slate really wasn't anything new, you could happily buy a tablet PC like this with full Windows operating system on it, albeit at a higher price point, for years and they don't shift.
The slate was a new form factor. Small, light, offering an enhanced touch interface and a much longer battery life and a much lower price point then in the past. I know alot of people who were jazzed for the Slate. Because it ran the applications they need it to run with out having to buy new ones. It also was not locked down like the iPad is, anyone could write apps for it because it's windows.
The only way HP got the Slate to the price point and form factor that they did was by giving it no guts at all. An Atom processor, integrated Intel graphics, 32Gb of storage (or 64Gb if you paid more + SD card) and most importantly 1Gb of memory with Windows 7? It would have choked badly on even moderate software and the battery life thing was cobblers too. 30Wh in a device like that is not going to give 5 hours once you start actually using it. Performance would have been terrible, it's a basic netbook spec without a keyboard (and that's backed up by the only hands-on review I ever saw, since removed from the web so it looks like it was legit).
It's the same old story from the crowd who complained about the iPad not running 'full' OS X really: what benefits do you get over the equivalent laptop and do they outweigh the compromises? I've never, not once, seen a really solid answer to that question and never ever an answer that would make good solid commercial sense if you were looking to shift hundreds of thousands of units (or more of course).
I can run MS Office, the gold standard for office productivity.
I can use ANY browser I want(Firefox/chrome/Opera/etc).
I can use Photoshop(albet older versions)
I can use the custom applications written inside my company
I can use Flash
I can run my companys accounting software
I can use Mathcad
I can run JAVA
I can run pretty much any application written for the Windows OS in the last 10 years, except games. And I can write my own. ALL with out Apples approval. No one tells me whats appropriate for my tablet, no one tells me wether I'm allowed to write software for my tablet, and no one tells me there's a life time limit of 2 Slates.
The reality is a GOOD real OS based pad would crush the iPad simpley because it could do so much more then the iPad because it was designed too. Was the Slate that product? Maybe not, but once the market gets rolling I'd say this is one Apple is not a shoe in to dominate long term. They haven't made a significant dent in the personal computer world since the Apple II.
No, it really really won't because, and this is the fundamental problem you've not addressed in your reply, the tablet form factor is WORSE for all existing productivity applications. I know I've banged on about this before but do you REALLY see yourself using... oh let's say Photoshop with a 9" touchscreen? How the hell are you going to use tool pallets designed for pinpoint precision with a finger? For that matter the 1024 x 600 screen would be struggling to accommodate that interface anyway, not enough vertical resolution. Not to mention Photoshop on an Atom processor, integrated Intel GPU and, oh yes, 1Gig of Ram wouldn't have exactly been a fun experience.
But, okay, Photoshop is maybe an unfair example here... what about Office? Again I'd say that screen resolution is going to make for a horrible experience and the ribbon really isn't finger friendly but you could probably use it. Except now you're doing productivity work on a touchscreen while having a keyboard pop up for text entry so you loose yet MORE screen space and are going to have a visible area no larger than a few lines in the worst case. How about fine grain control of things like table column widths, that could get deeply annoying with just finger control.
These are not issues that technology will overcome, these are fundamental user interface issues. A touch-driven tablet is such a vastly different beast from computers as we know them today they NEED software built around that interface. Anyone that thinks you can realistically use existing software on a 9" touchscreen with finger input hasn't sat down and thought it through, end of story. Let me put it this way... you say you have an iPhone right? How many times are you working on the keyboard and hit the wrong key? Those keys are larger than most UI elements would be on a desktop OS running at 1024 x 600 on a 10" screen. How frustrated are you going to be when you hit the wrong element and do something to your document you weren't intending to do?
What you are arguing for most of all is choice, and that's fine but that is NOT an argument for a full blown desktop OS with applications designed for keyboard and mouse input shoehorned into a tablet form factor and running on low-end hardware. If you want choice then for gods sake either spend more money and get a full-blown tablet just like those that have existed for years with a screen that twists around to give you the option of using it as a normal laptop when that's more appropriate or spend $550 on a cheap laptop, the experience will be infinitely better. If you want choice in an iPad-like tablet then wait for Android devices to come out. But saying a full OS would blow away the iPad JUST because you don't like the way Apple are going about it isn't a particularly convincing argument (oh, and if you don't think the current Smartphone revolution that the iPhone kicked off is a significant impact in the PC market... boy are you in for a shock).
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