A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm • Hacker News Board

Re: A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm

#21

Post by skrebbel » Sun, Aug 21, 2011, 7:28 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #14

sek wrote: post #8

WebOS was for Hurd just a fig leaf to make a future orientated impression, in reality were all the profits he made short term. What HP needs now is focus and that is what Apotheker is doing. Some people are disappointed that it is not consumer orientated, but when you look at the "smart phone wars" this seems reasonable to me. HP can't compete with Google, Apple and Microsoft there. Look at Nokia and Blackberry.

> What HP needs now is focus and that is what Apotheker is doing. Yes and no. Focusing would be to reduce the surface of the corporation to its core business, basically what Jobs did when he got back to Apple. What Apotheker is doing is to change HP's business altogether.

> What Apotheker is doing is to change HP's business altogether.

No he isn't, he's reducing its scope to the most profitable and future-proof business units. HP is one of the world's biggest enterprise software business. Yes, also before they bought Autonomy. They just also make PCs and printers and the likes, which makes consumers not know any better than "HP is a PC and printer maker".

Re: A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm

#22

Post by acangiano » Sun, Aug 21, 2011, 7:28 PM UTC

I think his interpretation of the facts is very plausible. Sadly, Larry Ellison was absolutely right when he said, at the time of Hurd's scandal, "the HP Board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple Board fired Steve Jobs many years ago."

Good CEOs who can revamp stagnant companies are hard to come by, particularly in the consumer space. Hurd was that CEO, Apotheker is not. And getting out of the consumer space, at a time when there are several paradigm shifts going on, means missing huge opportunities.

Re: A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm

#23

Post by ayanb » Sun, Aug 21, 2011, 7:29 PM UTC

HP has a highly distinguished board of directors. I find it strange that no one is highlighting the fact that Léo Apotheker is definitely enjoying the vote of confidence of the top level executives, otherwise this would have never been possible.

Re: A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm

#24

Post by allertonm » Sun, Aug 21, 2011, 7:33 PM UTC

webfuel wrote: post #9

anigbrowl wrote: post #5

Autonomy is nothing like SAP. What a ridiculous, empty post.

On the wikipedia page for Autonomy Corporation, under competitors, you'll find SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Search plus SAP Business Objects Text Analysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_enterprise_search_vendo...

I tend to agree with anigbrowl. While there are some overlapping products, those things are a tiny fraction of what SAP sells and far from their core business (I used to work for SAP Business Objects.)

Re: A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm

#25

Post by bradleyland » Sun, Aug 21, 2011, 7:39 PM UTC

allertonm wrote: post #24

webfuel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the wikipedia page for Autonomy Corporation, under competitors, you'll find SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Search plus SAP Business Objects Text Analysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_enterprise_search_vendo...

I tend to agree with anigbrowl. While there are some overlapping products, those things are a tiny fraction of what SAP sells and far from their core business (I used to work for SAP Business Objects.)

If looked at closely enough, no two businesses are alike. The question is, what's relevant to the discussion? In the scope of comparing consumer products vs business consulting, we can paint with broad enough strokes to call SAP and Autonomy "similar" businesses.

Re: A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm

#26

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Aug 21, 2011, 7:41 PM UTC

allertonm wrote: post #24

webfuel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the wikipedia page for Autonomy Corporation, under competitors, you'll find SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Search plus SAP Business Objects Text Analysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_enterprise_search_vendo...

I tend to agree with anigbrowl. While there are some overlapping products, those things are a tiny fraction of what SAP sells and far from their core business (I used to work for SAP Business Objects.)

[deleted]

Re: A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm

#27

Post by rwmj » Sun, Aug 21, 2011, 7:41 PM UTC

This quote: "Autonomy — a company I’d never heard of before but which more or less sounds like a rival to SAP" tells you everything you need to know about the blogger. He knows very little about the software business, and is just making up opinions based on his gut feeling, without backing it up with knowledge or evidence.

Re: A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm

#28

Post by fredoliveira » Sun, Aug 21, 2011, 7:44 PM UTC

rwmj wrote: post #27

This quote: "Autonomy — a company I’d never heard of before but which more or less sounds like a rival to SAP" tells you everything you need to know about the blogger. He knows very little about the software business, and is just making up opinions based on his gut feeling, without backing it up with knowledge or evidence.

Granted he may know little about Autonomy (although I'll argue he knows a bit about the software business), but he's pretty much right on the money when it comes to what Autonomy sounds like (in the sense that it is also an enterprise-oriented business), is he not?

Re: A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm

#29

Post by chollida1 » Sun, Aug 21, 2011, 7:45 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #3

I tend to agree with the basic reasoning but there's one thing I don't understand. Why cancel the TouchPad? Why not just spin that out with the hardware business to Compaq (which is the idea, yes?)? It seems they've devalued that unit by killing WebOS. All PC makers are on razor thin margins... apart from Apple. A post from yesterday [1] painted an interesting picture where Dell, through a series of seemingly rationa…

> Why not just spin that out with the hardware business to Compaq (which is the idea, yes?)? It seems they've devalued that unit by killing WebOS.

I'd imagine one of the biggest reasons is patents. If they spin out the business they have to sell the patents. If they're going into a new market where they don't traditionally have alot of expertise their only chance of not getting sued into oblivion is to be able to cross license patents.

Spinning off the Palm patent portfolio significantly hurts them in this regard.

With the price of patents being what it is these days, it might have been worth more to them to keep the patents and bury the project.

Re: A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm

#30

Post by bvi » Sun, Aug 21, 2011, 7:47 PM UTC

ayanb wrote: post #23

HP has a highly distinguished board of directors. I find it strange that no one is highlighting the fact that Léo Apotheker is definitely enjoying the vote of confidence of the top level executives, otherwise this would have never been possible.

Remember, HP's board underwent a major shakeup once Léo came in: http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/01/28/hp%E2%80%99s-bo...