Hewlett-Packard Co may resurrect its TouchPad as it weighs a spinoff of its personal computer arm, the head of its PC division said, suggesting HP might revive a tablet that lasted just six weeks in the face of stiff competition from Apple Inc.
Let me make this simple HP: People don’t want the TouchPad. You had a fire sale and sold lots of them, but you lost a ton of money. Shut it down.
Some idiot in the HP management must of actually believed some of the garbage that some pundit was pushing. Right now HP execs are starting to look like the Keystone Cops.
Just a thought
I consider Leo Apotheker to be HP’s version of DEC’s Robert Palmer. I guess I’m dating myself, but it is very frustrating to me that tech journalists don’t notice the similarities. Yes, Apotheker didn’t start HP’s decline, but Robert Palmer didn’t start DEC’s decline either (Ken Olson, rest his coal, couldn’t comprehend why anyone would want a personal computer). HP started as an instrumentation company. That implies precision and innovation to keep up with the state of the art. They should have been competing with Apple instead of Dell in the PC market. Sure, they won, but at what cost? Apotheker is disemboweling HP, just as Palmer did DEC, while giving the impression that he is groping in the dark with one hand, while the other is down his pants.
I presume that the reason for this follow production run is that they have so many parts and possibly the parts that are not machine specific were parts that they thought they could sell back to their supply line and were disappointed and it is a cheaper write off to produce the machines and sell them off than the cost of trying to offload the parts and then pay for the destruction of product specific items such as cases and circuit boards etc which is a lower write off than the final write off from the loss on full retail.
Alternatively they may plan to sell them at a higher but still cheaper than iPad price with a tiny margin and build a market. Once they have enough people they can always package the webOS based tablet off with the PC division and then leave the buyer of the PC division to deal with the customers that will need support.
Just my vague thoughts, and I mean really vague thoughts on the story.
I don’t think the person you claim to be an idiot “must OF actually . . .” I believe that an intelligent person would have said “must have actually . . . “
This is too funny!
I agree with a lot of what you say Jim, but not this time, not completely. I do agree with this assertion: “[The Touchpad is] a tablet that lasted just six weeks in the face of stiff competition from Apple Inc.”. – While I agree with that, I completely disagree with this: “Let me make this simple HP: People don’t want the TouchPad. You had a fire sale and sold lots of them, but you lost a ton of money. Shut it down.”
– Jim, I know plenty of people who bought the Touchpad prior to its unfortunate demise. As an iPad II owner, as an “all things Apple” columnist, and as a self professed tech-junkie in general, I think that Apple needs good (key word here: good) competition.
The Touchpad (IMHO) was the closest thing to that I’ve seen.
Not the xoom, not the Galaxy Tab, and most definitely not the Playbook – none of these measured up to the iPad. The Touchpad however – despite its bulk and other shortcomings I could mention, didn’t pale so badly by comparison.
HP’s decision (or more so Apotheker’s) to kill it was premature.
But within that clusterf… of bad decisions they have made, they did stumble on to something: Drop the price to a hundred bucks, and all of a sudden you’ve got lines, you’ve got blowout sales (despite the initial loss – and initial is key here) – people want a decently priced Tablet, and are willing to dish out a bill easier than they would 4 or 5 of them (thats hundreds of dollars, to our foreign Engish speaking/reading crowd).
Can you blame them?
I freely admit (being an owner aside) that the iPad II is the best tablet in the market today. But I also admit that it is a tad pricey for the average indvidual. Do I think everyone should own a tablet? – yes. Can everyone afford one? – no. in comes a 99$ touchpad. Think about it Jim – HP might have come up with a different market stratagy that could serve it well with its battle with Apple. That is, if someone with enough cojones close enough to Apotheker sees the potential here….
Just my (long, I know) 2c.
Cheers.
Ron, I think we agree more than you think. I’d love to see some good competition for the iPad. For HP to release it, then cancel it because it doesn’t sell, then fire sale, then maybe bring it back.
Makes no sense.
You are quite correct about “of”. It constantly trips me up. As I go through the thought process, when I think “must’ve” it translates to “must of” when I write it down. Though you might want to be careful of “I believe that an intelligent person would have said “must have actually . . . “. That’s pretty much akin to saying that a person can’t be intelligent because they stutter. Only dummies stutter because they are too dumb to speak. My wife has a VERY intelligent uncle who has a stuttering issue, but his mind always amazes me when we meet and talk about life, religion and politics.
Just a thought
Can’t argue with you there Jim.
Its starting to be oddly reminiscent of RIM on that level:
Poor decisions made at the top, and the excrement trickles down… Saddens me to see that once again, despite almost being on the precipice of a fair shot – WebOS still didn’t get one.
I stand corrected Jim. Stupid HP indeed.
P.S
Thanks for the swift reply.
I thoroughly enjoy reading your work.
I’m not sure it’s so stupid that they saw demand and realized they may have cut it off too soon. And I know that’s not what you meant, Jim. But what I suspect is, these bozos are running around now saying – “Oh no, we screwed up! We should have given it more time to see if it would take!”
All the while, it must not yet have dawned on them that there’s no way they’re ever going to be able to charge $399 for it now that they’ve sold it for $99. And what about all those thousands they sold at $499 and $399 (or whatever prices they were). Will there be refunds?
It’s too late HP. You had your chance. You failed. Quit while you’re not as far behind and you will be if you try to revive it now.
You’re being far too gentle.
Curious to see how the stockholders/markets treat this sort of indecisive leadership.
Just a thought. It appears they’re doing it for one reason and one reason only. Very mad parts suppliers stuck with a bunch of hardware for a cancelled tablet. HP is making nice with them so they’ll continue to do business with them.
I can’t be the only person thinking that HP’s C-level staff would make great reality-tv fodder.
I try to never sink to a lower level in a debate. Wilburg seems to be a word person, and to a word person, using “of” instead of ” ‘ve” or have seems stupid. His or her mistake was going too far and attaching lack of intelligence to a mistake I made (and make too often) when I wrote the comment. The other possibility is Wilburg might be either a fan of HP or employee and lashed out. Fair enough.
Just a thought
I want one!
Mr Photo Ed,
You are absolutely right. I subscribe to this RSS feed for news, and it bothers me that I see so many articles which “flame” so many things non-Apple. Subjective phrases such as “HP is stupid . . .” or “HP’s CEO is an idiot . . . ” have no place in a news feed. All they do is to further the “us vs them” mentality which is consuming us.
So, I stand corrected.
By the way, I am no great fan of HP. In earlier days (before personal computers proliferated), I sold electronic instrumentation for Tektronix which competed with HP. HP made many excellent products, as did Tektronix.
Tek and HP both suffered from a good deal of hubris and self-congratulation, and are now mere shadows of their former selves.
Tek went from a very successful company with over 24000 employees worldwide to (last time I checked was many years ago) less than 7000.
Meanwhile, Carly Fiorini presided over the near-demise of HP and the spinning off its instrument division as Agilent.
Neither Tek nor Agilent/HP have fully recovered.
I do like the HP laser printers (I am a Mac person). The first I purchased was in 92 and I only replaced it when I could no longer use it due to updating to Snow Leopard a year ago.
HP, instead of spinning off hardware should reduce the product line. They have too many printers out there. One of the smartest things Mr Jobs did at Apple was to severely limit the product line. Instead of many different types of Macs, he limited it to 2 types. The pro line (Mac Pro) and the home use line (iMac). The iMacs and MacBooks with built in screens having different sizes, there is still mostly two types of computers. The pro line (MacBook Pro and Mac Pro) and the very capable home use lines (iMac and MacBook Air). Yes I know there is the Mac Mini, but I consider it to be separate and not part of the main lines. Many CEO’s and Boards now look to the short term bottom line and making Stockholders happy. These I consider to be idiots and instead of planning for the long term, usually cut and slash to maintain profits until the companies implode and collapse as you noted in your example of DEC.Just 2 cents