In recent years HP has upped its attention to usability, with the goal of providing products aimed at mainstream consumers. Palm--the company HP in a deal that set the stage for the swath of --has its own long history of providing top-notch interfaces that create fans and devotees, but it has struggled to remain relevant in a market dominated by Apple's iPhone and Google's Android army of handsets.

HP's far-reaching, just-introduced WebOS strategy underscores the point that HP has an overall vision for its WebOS products. In representatives' remarks during a marathon launch event, HP explained how WebOS products could interact, and it gave a framework (albeit one short on details) for how it might implement that vision.

That vision is missing from many of the me-too competitors throwing out into the marketplace.

HP, like Apple, has the advantage of making devices and the OS that runs them. And as with Apple gatherings, at HP's event we saw clear demonstrations of capabilities (even though some features were not yet enabled and, infamously, no one but HP's own demonstrators could actually get their hands on the TouchPad tablet).

In fact, HP's splashy event reeked of showmanship--complete with a crowd seeded by guests who'd cheer at Jon Rubinstein's words, and celebrity name-dropping. But what the event also illustrated was that HP understood just what it needed to show to in an increasingly crowded landscape.