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Over time, these hardware companies grow or die. Their products have to get cheaper, hopefully due to economy of scale. Company management never wants to kill the old products with new ones, plus it's pretty hard to guess exactly where to go.
Everyone eventually falls off the treadmill.
Years later, of course, management has amazing 20/20 hindsight.
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There was WebOS. Which I felt was really ahead of its time. But an OS takes time to develop because of the chicken and egg problem. Once Hurd was fired it no longer had C-level interest. They sold it to Samsung, who renamed it Tizen. The UX designer went to Android. And the engineers were scattered across the mobile ecosystem.
WebOS was an acquisition from Palm, however. And they dumped it almost immediately after the Touchpad and the Pre3 sales tanked.
That’s when I HP was in real trouble. Instead of pursuing new markets in mobile they retreated back to PCs, printers, and services. They were trying to grow into a market o it’s way to stagnating.
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Also, past the LaserJet 5, their printers started taking a nosedive in quality. In my own experience at work, the 1000 didn't last long before it started spewing toner all over the page, and the 4550N, a gigantic color laser with extremely expensive consumables, did likewise. Don't get me started on their inkjets. Nothing like an all-in-one that won't even let you SCAN when it decides to "expire" a costly printhead.…
What's a brand of printer that doesn't sell the printer at a loss and then has you pay through the nose for tiny cartridges of ink? I made the mistake of buying a Canon once and now I'm looking for a new printer.
The other way to avoid paying through the nose for tiny ink cartridges is to get a printer with refillable ink, i.e. Epson's EcoTank branded models or one of the many third party refillable cartridge solutions. But these always end up drying out and clogging if they're not used frequently enough.
I was always surprised they let Microsoft come in and commoditise their business, why wasn't there an HP operating system to compete with Windows?
There was WebOS. Which I felt was really ahead of its time. But an OS takes time to develop because of the chicken and egg problem. Once Hurd was fired it no longer had C-level interest. They sold it to Samsung, who renamed it Tizen. The UX designer went to Android. And the engineers were scattered across the mobile ecosystem.
That was 20 years after Windows came on the scene.
Parent poster was wondering why 1980s/1990s HP let Microsoft commoditize hardware (courtesy of IBM). I think the answer is the same as for IBM: old management who couldn't see the revolution coming. After 40 years of Cold War, where the business landscape had been more or less stable and consistent, people struggled to conceive the notion that fundamental shifts could happen.
At school (1991-1994), we had HP and Sun workstations. The HP were nicknamed the toasters because they were hot. The Sun were beautiful beasts. After power failure, we regularly had problems with Sun, never with HP. When we were downloading games from the net, it was easy to compile them on Sun, but was always a nighmare on HP (non standard includes, libraries, ...). I think HP is excellent about hardware, but terrib…
The Sun machines were much more common and a lot of software was tested/built on SunOS.
I have known many other people in all levels of IT that have felt the same way.
I was always surprised they let Microsoft come in and commoditise their business, why wasn't there an HP operating system to compete with Windows?
There was WebOS. Which I felt was really ahead of its time. But an OS takes time to develop because of the chicken and egg problem. Once Hurd was fired it no longer had C-level interest. They sold it to Samsung, who renamed it Tizen. The UX designer went to Android. And the engineers were scattered across the mobile ecosystem.
Today it wouldn’t be an issue, but in ‘09 or ‘10 it was non-trivial.
Great UI design though. I’m still amazed how long it took for others to steal the card metaphor and some of the other great features. Like the Touchstone. We’re finally living in that world most of a decade later.
I dont know about HP before the late 90s, but I have been working in some form of tech for 15 years now, and I have developed an aversion to any HP product. Seeing that logo fills me with dread and anxiety. Early on it was dealing with printer drivers, and explaining to users that you don't need the full install to use the device. Then it was painfully navigating HPSM. Then test driving the HP Stackable Switches whic…
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What's a brand of printer that doesn't sell the printer at a loss and then has you pay through the nose for tiny cartridges of ink? I made the mistake of buying a Canon once and now I'm looking for a new printer.
If you don't do a lot of photo printing I'd highly recommend getting a laser printer. Far more reliable than inkjets, never dry out, and the toner is cheap. I got an $80 black and white Brother nearly a decade ago and it still works fine. These days you can get color laser machines under $200 and the toner remains far cheaper than ink cartridges. The other way to avoid paying through the nose for tiny ink cartridges…
Edit: Apparently splix driver works for this one.
https://www.openprinting.org/driver/splix
I swear the ML-1710 model did not show up last time I checked the printer list. Maybe I just missed it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's a brand of printer that doesn't sell the printer at a loss and then has you pay through the nose for tiny cartridges of ink? I made the mistake of buying a Canon once and now I'm looking for a new printer.
If you don't do a lot of photo printing I'd highly recommend getting a laser printer. Far more reliable than inkjets, never dry out, and the toner is cheap. I got an $80 black and white Brother nearly a decade ago and it still works fine. These days you can get color laser machines under $200 and the toner remains far cheaper than ink cartridges. The other way to avoid paying through the nose for tiny ink cartridges…