Wikibon.org CTO David Floyer has posted an article identifying an apparent strategy by HP to use handheld tablets as mobile control-panels for printers and other products. HP already has introduced office printers with 7-inch Android tablets as control panels, and Floyer believes that HP’s strategy will be to move from Android to webOS, which it acquired when it bought Palm Inc. he suspects that this may be the real major thrust of HP’s tablet strategy, and that HP will extend it to other machinery, such as the commercial digital printing presses it manufacturers.

He foresees HP producing tablet control panels for devices ranging from refrigerators and home climate controllers to medical imaging and manufacturing machinery. He argues that HP can make a nice income from these mobile control panels and that at present this market is wide open, whereas the company faces major competition in the consumer and business tablet computer markets from Apple, Android, and RIM (Playbook), who are already established, as well as potentially Windows 8, which Microsoft has been showing recently as a tablet and laptop operating system.

HP could use the controller market to build webOS volumes and internal expertise that it then could leverage to gain a foothold in the consumer and business tablet markets. This strategy would allow HP to build the kind of manufacturing volume that would allow it to enter the cost-sensitive consumer market at a lower price level than competitors.