HP promises more touchscreen PCs And third party apps

14 June 2008 16:30 GMT / By Katie Scott

In an exclusive chat behind the scenes at HP's conference in Berlin, a top exec from HP hinted that touchscreen tech is going to play a big part in the company's future road map.

The annual event saw the unveiling of the TouchSmart IQ500 PC - a shiny new machine which the company is hoping could become the multimedia hub of family homes around the world.

But Anne-Catherine Poirson, product line manager, consumer notebooks, personal systems group, EMEA, told Pocket-lint that more touchscreen models are on the cards.

She said: "We've got a lot of heritage in touch and development for the TouchSmart started three or four years ago".

"And there will be even more focus on experience and touch in the future."

"We are definitely planning more products so watch this space."

And third party applications could appear on the new machines.

A UK HP spokesperson added after the event: "While HP has built a suite of applications and applets in the TouchSmart Suite, we are also open to working with third party application providers to enable meaningful and value add experiences as part of the TouchSmart experience".

"The Touchsmart software suite is built on the industry standard platform of windows Vista. This enables any windows developer to create new and compelling applications using existing Windows programming tools."

Again - watch this space.