I would think this is less to do with HP wanting to just announce "something" to steal iPad thunder, and more about them just having gained a incredible touch OS. To be blunt, while Win7 has made many strides towards being a better touch OS it is no where near where it needs to be yet for someone to use it without a mouse and keyboard. There is just too much heavy lifting left to do.

I see this less as "we where never intending to do this," and more "we have something infinitely better, in house, which is actually built from the ground up for touch controls. Let's just go with that."