HP to Launch ‘Sprout’ Computing Product

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) will make good on its promise to deliver “new computing experiences” when it showcases at a New York event Oct. 29 a hybrid product called Sprout that combines a large, flat-screen display with a touch-enabled flat work surface and a projector and 3-D scanner overhead.

Re/code reported that the large, flat-creen display is reminiscent of HP’s Pavilion Touchsmart touch-enabled desktop PCs.

According to the report, out of the box Sprout will run on Microsoft (MSFT) Windows but next-generation editions could be configured to run Google’s (GOOG) Chrome OS, perhaps in an HP nod to its allegiance to both platforms.

The product is the brainchild of a special HP group headed by Eric Monsef, a former 15-year Apple (AAPL) engineering and mobile design veteran.

HP figures to aim Sprout at business customers but its appeal could extend to consumers whose technology needs cross over with those of professionals.

Sprout reportedly enables users to manipulate images for a variety of business settings. The overhead projector displays an image onto the work surface, allowing users to alter it either with their hands or a stylus, perhaps adding pieces to it by scanning other images to include in it.

In that way, Sprout could attract a wide range of business users, ranging from showing product choices to consumers to home improvement stores and decorators to clothing or fashion retailers and also to professionals making presentations, according to Re/code’s sources familiar with HP’s plans.

At this point, there’s no word on Sprout’s pricing, when it will be available and how HP will sell it.

What is apparent, however, is HP is keen to demonstrate that it, too, can deliver hardware innovation, although it remains to be seen if Sprout will meet a market need, if HP will build on it in future iterations, and whether the vendor ultimately creates an app ecosystem to help drive demand for the thing.