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The stock market hates HP's new strategy

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Re: The stock market hates HP's new strategy

#101

Post by tptacek »

prayag wrote: post #59
Silhouette wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, I don't think you appreciate the scale of huge companies and the requirements for the software and suppliers that help to manage them. If HP or IBM or SAP or Oracle wanted to do what, say, Dropbox does, they would throw effectively unlimited funding at the problem until it was solved. They might not even bother to market the result publicly, to avoid diluting their brand, but if they chose to do so, the…

>If HP or IBM or SAP or Oracle wanted to do what, say, Dropbox does, they would throw effectively unlimited funding at the >problem until it was solved. And if there is one thing we've learned from Microsoft etc. is that throwing unlimited funding at a problem fixes it.

Your logic here seems to be that because throwing huge amounts of money at (say) search landed Microsoft in second place behind one of the most successful, lucrative, and well-capitalized technology companies of all time, money doesn't matter.

Re: The stock market hates HP's new strategy

#102

Post by cubicle67 »

This was in my email this morning

Dear webOS developer:

We have opened the next chapter for webOS, and we understand that you must have many questions. Yesterday we announced that we will focus on the future of webOS as a software platform but we will no longer be producing webOS devices. While this was a difficult decision, it's one that will strengthen our ability to focus on further innovating with webOS as we forge our path forward. Throughout this journey, our developers will continue to be a vital part of the future of webOS.

I feel genuinely sorry for these people - the WebOS team within HP. I'm assuming they knew nothing until the news was made public, and it must hurt like hell to have to compose an email like this (and then have PR sanitise it)

Re: The stock market hates HP's new strategy

#103

Post by espeed »

A few months ago HP acquired Vertica (http://www.vertica.com/resources/videos/), which was founded by Mike Stonebraker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Stonebraker), the inventor of PostgreSQL. Vertica is the real-time big data analytics system that Zynga is using -- it looks like HP is planning on making a push into that space.

Re: The stock market hates HP's new strategy

#104

Post by beagle3 »

pemulis wrote: post #65
guelo wrote: post #24

Another MBA type killing a great tech company. I don't understand why it doesn't occur to these boards that engineers/technologists/innovators should lead tech companies. For some reason they can't imagine that technology can save a technology company. It wasn't some genius business maneuver that turned Apple into the biggest company in the world, it was genius technology.

Not to discount the idea that tech companies should be run by innovators, but Apple wouldn't be one of the biggest companies in the world if not for its ingenious vertical integration, which ensures that competitors are always a year or more behind. A few famous examples include the way they temporarily monopolized the supply of a crucial type of flash memory for iPods, and still control the entire supply of certain…

I agree with everything you say. And yet, Apple is not run by MBAs or MBA culture - it is being run by a person whose roots are in technology, liberal arts, LSD and hare krishna, and is a college dropout. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Early_years is illuminating about who this person is.

Re: The stock market hates HP's new strategy

#105

Post by prayag »

Silhouette wrote: post #73
prayag wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If HP or IBM or SAP or Oracle wanted to do what, say, Dropbox does, they would throw effectively unlimited funding at the >problem until it was solved. And if there is one thing we've learned from Microsoft etc. is that throwing unlimited funding at a problem fixes it.

Well, how much software have you paid for lately to help view your files and directories in a graphical tree, defragment your disks, compress the data on them, or scan that data for viruses? A few years ago, all of those things were available through a variety of commercial tools. Microsoft basically eliminated those entire industries when it provided a decent alternative built in to Windows. In any case, your commen…

>Well, how much software have you paid for lately to help view your files and directories in a graphical tree, defragment your disks, compress the data on them, or scan that data for viruses?

As me how much Microsoft software I've used in last say an year. I know. Zero. Microsoft isn't a behemoth it used to be.

>In any case, your comment is a cheap shot. Microsoft have a relatively strong track record when it comes to establishing footholds in new markets, even if they've been slow to see the opportunity at first, by committing vast resources and running loss leaders for a while if necessary to establish their product

I wouldn't be so sure of a strong track. I think the only thing they have to show for themselves in last decade is Xbox. I can't think of any other new market where they have been as successful. I do understand where you are coming from, MS does have a reputation of going into new domains and becoming a NUMBER TWO player. But that's hardly what a company of the caliber of MS aspires to do. I do have respect for MS and its research facilities, but that doesn't mean I believe that it has what it takes to kill off start-ups with good momentum, like Dropbox. At best it can be the Bing to Google.

Re: The stock market hates HP's new strategy

#106

Post by prayag »

tptacek wrote: post #101
prayag wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If HP or IBM or SAP or Oracle wanted to do what, say, Dropbox does, they would throw effectively unlimited funding at the >problem until it was solved. And if there is one thing we've learned from Microsoft etc. is that throwing unlimited funding at a problem fixes it.

Your logic here seems to be that because throwing huge amounts of money at (say) search landed Microsoft in second place behind one of the most successful, lucrative, and well-capitalized technology companies of all time , money doesn't matter.

Second place after merging the service with the service in the second place (Yahoo search). Google wasn't the most successful, lucrative and well-capitalized technology when it started. Google was the case of one company completely dominating a market which they helped create. Dropbox is example of another such market (I am not comparing dropbox with google just giving an analogy).

Re: The stock market hates HP's new strategy

#107

Post by Silhouette »

prayag wrote: post #105
Silhouette wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, how much software have you paid for lately to help view your files and directories in a graphical tree, defragment your disks, compress the data on them, or scan that data for viruses? A few years ago, all of those things were available through a variety of commercial tools. Microsoft basically eliminated those entire industries when it provided a decent alternative built in to Windows. In any case, your commen…

>Well, how much software have you paid for lately to help view your files and directories in a graphical tree, defragment your disks, compress the data on them, or scan that data for viruses? As me how much Microsoft software I've used in last say an year. I know. Zero. Microsoft isn't a behemoth it used to be. >In any case, your comment is a cheap shot. Microsoft have a relatively strong track record when it comes t…

> Microsoft isn't a behemoth it used to be.

Microsoft Windows desktop market share: 90+%

Microsoft Office market share: 90+%

Internet Explorer market share: 40-50% (still by far the most popular browser)

> I think the only thing they have to show for themselves in last decade is Xbox. I can't think of any other new market where they have been as successful.

A few obvious examples:

Client division: Windows 7

Server and Tools division: Windows Server, Visual Studio, SQL Server, Exchange Server

Business division: Office

Entertainment and Devices division: XBox 360, various games, various mice/keyboards/etc.

R&D: Seems to employ/fund just about everyone doing industrial programming language research except for the 3 Google managed to hire, and a huge proportion of the industrial HCI research too.

MS obviously aren't dominant in all of these fields (compare Oracle for DB, the other major consoles for gaming, etc.). However, no start-up is going to compete with these sorts of products any time soon.

The most obvious targets for disruption by smaller players are the browser market, except that both Chrome and Firefox have basically written off business users as clients so MS will have a base there for as long as it wants one, and programming, except that with the resources and R&D Microsoft are throwing into that field lately it seems more likely that MS will pull away from the small time competition rather than losing ground for the foreseeable future.

That means at best, start-ups are going to be competing against Microsoft's secondary portfolio, things like BizTalk and Dynamics, and it's not as if there's a huge amount of innovation going on in the start-up sector in unsexy fields like that (unless you still think a business plan featuring the word "cloud" in big enough letters is worth VC funding, I suppose, but since the likes of Google Docs haven't even made a dent I don't suppose MS will be too worried about that sort of start-up for now).

Re: The stock market hates HP's new strategy

#108

Post by prayag »

Silhouette wrote: post #107
prayag wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Well, how much software have you paid for lately to help view your files and directories in a graphical tree, defragment your disks, compress the data on them, or scan that data for viruses? As me how much Microsoft software I've used in last say an year. I know. Zero. Microsoft isn't a behemoth it used to be. >In any case, your comment is a cheap shot. Microsoft have a relatively strong track record when it comes t…

> Microsoft isn't a behemoth it used to be. Microsoft Windows desktop market share: 90+% Microsoft Office market share: 90+% Internet Explorer market share: 40-50% (still by far the most popular browser) > I think the only thing they have to show for themselves in last decade is Xbox. I can't think of any other new market where they have been as successful. A few obvious examples: Client division: Windows 7 Server an…

>Microsoft Windows desktop market share: 90+% A relic of last decade. A case of momentum.

>Internet Explorer market share: 40-50% A side-effect of the above.

I hate to be sidetracked by my perceived opinion of Microsoft. I am not the one to spew hate on MS. I have a lot of respect for MS and its research philosophy.

However, the point I am trying to make is that Microsoft has never solved a problem by throwing money at it. When they have tried, they have ended up (inspite of having good products) in number 2 position.

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