Facing the problem of selling Tablets to a reluctant market, HP was challenged: "Go on, show me an example of an application where anything other than a Tablet PC would simply not work.

The example they've come up with is a simple application PR story - but an interesting one. It's a case of wine. Well, not just a case: a four-storey wine tower.

eWinebook - I'm sorry this still sounds like a solution looking for a problem. The obvious suggestion would be to reduce the inventory of wine. If the wine director analyses the type of wine that is ordered he will PRESUMABLY find out that the vast majority of customers will order a very narrow range of wines. And the excess inventory is proably costing him a fortune. Indeed, is the job of a decent sommelier not to offer advice on the wine, anyway? The only real benefit of this application is the "novelty" factor, which is worth something, I guess.

Also, what is wrong with porting the same eWinebook app on to a Pocket PC or Palm computer? Surely, either could manipulate a database with only 10,000 records and be much cheaper? But of course, that would mean there would be no use for the tablet PC... :-)

You appear to be using logic. It makes me suspect that you haven't been a frequent visitor to Las Vegas!

:-)

In a place like Las Vegas people really will go to a restaurant simply because it offers the biggest wine list. And they'll go in their dozens, hundreds. It's a strange place. Are other places that different?

I'm not sure how you'd measure it, but I'm guessing that if you have a big place in an area with relatively low "real estate" costs per square foot, the inventory is pretty cheap. Especially if you buy the wine young, and keep it to mature; it appreciates in value faster than the cost of storing it, I think. And then you can always sell off the unpopular ones ...

Edited by author 09-05-2003 08:18 PM
Fantastic!

I want to go and see it in action. Mainly from a technology point of view, it has to be said. This would probably be a factor in deciding to go back to Vegas...

Las Vegas is already on my list of places to re-visit :-)