Today HP announced that they would make one more batch of Touchpads:

We have decided to produce one last run of TouchPads to meet unfulfilled demand.

While my inner-optimist would like to believe that HP is making a few more Touchpads because they feel sorry for everyone who really wanted one and didn’t get one, I think it is more likely that HP had other reasons for making another batch of Touchpads:

1. They have to make more in order to keep a backup supply to use for in-warranty replacements.  HP asserts that all Touchpads come with a 1 year warranty.
2. By making a few more, they can continue to reap an increased level of press coverage.  HP has never seen so much press coverage until they announced the discontinuance of the Touchpad.
3. They have contracts with customers, channels, and partners to provide a certain number of Touchpads, and they are making more to fulfill their legal requirements to those contracts.
4. They fear a public relations backlash, possibly even legal consequences, if they don’t provide any more after using phrases like, “Coming Soon,” “Temporarily out of stock,” and “When it becomes available again.”
5. In an effort to license or sell webOS to other device manufacturers, HP wanted a supply of Touchpads to provide to developers or engineers.

Perhaps the generalization of these speculations is this: The fire sale happened so quickly that HP ran flat out of inventory before they realized that they needed a few more.