It's an excellent question. An article that actually had an ANSWER to the question would be quite interesting. This article has nothing more than some speculation that perhaps HP has a bunch of parts inventory to get rid of, which is admitted to be nothing but speculation.

My personal opinion is that the senior management at HP is trying to find the fastest and most effective way to destroy the company, and they belatedly realized that selling tablets at a significant loss per unit was even MORE effective at that goal than getting out of the business that the company has mastered in hopes of out-IBM'ing IBM.