There is tons of smacktalk coming from HP on this. Is the confidence justified? WebOS has plenty of lovers, but iPad's a market share monster. Competition, still, is healthy.
If HPalm can take a solid niche (better UI than iPad, free-er than Android) and make 2nd place out of it, they will have a sustainable foothold to re-establish the WebOS brand.
Apple doesn't have to lose for HP to succeed.
As for the rest of the demo, well -- shrug -- it looks like iOS. I tend to agree with the downvoted grandparent: bring something new to the table, or don't waste my time. My guess is that few people other than patent attorneys will end up making any money from this product.
In any case, if someone at Apple were to load up on Red Bull and pizza and camp out in their office for a weekend, iOS's task-switcher could look and work exactly the same. They apparently believe they're doing it the right way now, though, for whatever reason.
I've gone back and forth between webOS and iOS phones over the past couple years, and while webOS is not better in every way, and is significantly handicapped in some ways, it's also significantly better than iOS in some ways. I really don't see webOS phones as poor attempts to jump on a bandwagon just to scrape whatever profit they can. This is much more a case of healthy competition.
I too expect Apple will eventually adopt a similar multitasking paradigm for iOS (you could call it Exposé-inspired, or webOS-inspired, as you wish), negating webOS's most obvious advantage. Which you could attribute to the effects of competition. Or maybe Apple would have inevitably done it once the hardware got powerful enough -- who knows.
They may stay on top but I speculate it'll be like iPhone market share before Android was a real contender.
Nearly all the Android tablets that are out now are down-market compared to iPad. This could really shake it up.
But that said, I agree the tablet market is just heating up. The iPad is a pretty formidable competitor, not just because of its existing market share but really because it's a good product. Still, there's room for more than one product.
My impression (from reading press, not from firsthand experience) is that a few Android vendors (notably Samsung and Motorola) and RIM have all stepped up to the plate, took a swing, and pretty much struck out. Maybe they'll get better over time -- probably they will -- but it looks like they shipped too early and quality suffered as a result; the reviews I've read have been largely negative. Meanwhile Microsoft doesn't have anything coming soon.
All that means HP has a really good shot at the #2 spot right out of the gate.
If that's enough to get developers to return to webOS, the platform might still have a chance.