TouchPad demand crashes servers

HP's TouchPad tablet PC has seen a rapid surge in demand in the UK after retailers cut their prices.

Most of the retailers oversold their supplies of the webOS-enabled tablet after the price was cut to as low as £89.

Thanks to the sudden influx of online buyers, many servers even struggled to cope with the traffic and orders became almost impossible to complete.

As Dixons Retail, owner of PC World, Currys and Dixons.com, described the demand as "unprecedented", Dabs.com sold 500 units in just 15 minutes.

Resellers on Amazon.co.uk were selling the 16GB model for £250.

Similar discounts began to appear in the United States over the weekend.