I laughed because they were also a major player in the mobile devices market upon the acquisition of Compaq. Remember the iPaq? They were solid devices at the time and sold well. Granted, your emphasis on WebOS is correct. That time, they didn't get control of an OS. Microsoft let WinCE stagnate to some degree over the next few years. We'll see how HP does this time around.
Even before iPaq HP had it's own Jornada.
And way before that it had the HP200LX, a 300g DOS computer that ran for 35 hours(!) on 2xAA batteries (monochrome LCD). The closest today is the eee PC, which has heavier batteries, worse battery life [I'd have said the iPhone - but no keyboard, no coding allowed. But it shows an ARM-based clamshell is possible...]
That was before HP, the original garage startup, went consumer with Carly Fiorina. They'd lost their way before then, with Matrix management, but Messrs H and P were still around to unretire and fix it. No more. :(
Really? They should be grateful that they look to still have jobs. If Apple or Microsoft or Google bought them, a bunch of them would have been laid off.
HP cut deep when it acquired EDS, from top management all the way down to the trenches. I don't think they will leave much besides (parts of) R&D this time.
That's because there was lots of overlap w/ EDS. They already had their own services division, a pretty big one at that, so they had to cut out the redundancies. Not the case with Palm. HP doesn't have many software developers, and much less for mobile platforms.
First EDS and now this. HP is just going after mega deals but no real innovation in their own R&D. As an ex-HP employee I can only imagine what all they could do had they invested same in R&D.
The memristor alone is a gold mine. They've also innovated tremendously in making data centers more energy efficient. I'm not sure what you consider innovation, but because this stuff doesn't make in the news regularly like some pretty phones do, it doesn't mean large companies like IBM and HP aren't innovating every day.
An example of the point I am trying to make is that HP now has a consulting division that implements SAP (ERP) solutions for other companies. Why would you spend money acquiring businesses like that?
Memristor is a great example. But how much time between nano technology research at HP labs and end-user products being released? main point being will the money spent on acquiring other businesses be rather well spent if invested in internal R&D to speedup things.
Been there, done that, and HP is not capable of developing a product from the ground up that will be competitive in the marketplace. For them the best option is definitely to buy. I hate to say it, but they're a company that's out of innovation and out of talent.
Procurve? Proliant (otherwise known as the best value enterprise servers on the market) Let's not forget their various diagnostics tools and imaging products. Printers? Cameras? Calculators? The incredible solutions from EYP for building efficient datacenters, including their containerized solutions? Openview (Sure nobody ever used it, but a lot of companies pay a hell of a lot of money for it) But you're right, HP i…
You're right, they are massive, and I will admit that the only division I'm intimately familiar with is HP Software. At about 13,000 employees it's is a relatively small part of HP. I can speak only to that division, you may be more familiar with ISS and Procurve than I am. I have the utmost respect for HP's technologists. The tech demos and prototypes created are truly amazing. But lets be honest, the ipaq has been in maintenance mode for years and needs a complete refresh to be on par with current offerings from competitors. When was the last time you've seen HP enter a market with a truly innovative and successful product which was built entirely in-house? Networking is being augmented with the $2.7bn 3com acquisition rather than developing new technology in house, Proliant came from the Compaq acquisition, IPG hasn't done anything truly innovative in years -- Snapfish was an acquisition, they discontinued internal production of photosmart cameras two years ago, and much of the current OpenCall (formerly OpenView) came from the Mercury and Opsware acquisitions. HP is good at buying technology, and it's services, sales, and ops, are top notch. But they've either by intent or by misstep strayed from The HP Way over the last couple years and are no longer capable of living up to their slogan of "Invent".
I laughed because they were also a major player in the mobile devices market upon the acquisition of Compaq. Remember the iPaq? They were solid devices at the time and sold well. Granted, your emphasis on WebOS is correct. That time, they didn't get control of an OS. Microsoft let WinCE stagnate to some degree over the next few years. We'll see how HP does this time around.
First EDS and now this. HP is just going after mega deals but no real innovation in their own R&D. As an ex-HP employee I can only imagine what all they could do had they invested same in R&D.
HP is indirectly investing in R&D. It would take HP years to build something like WebOS on their own. They just bought 1500 patents and years of R&D effort with talent for a good price. I am not sure how they could top that.
I've used the Pre (I have an iPhone) - it is incredibly solidly designed. Its main problems are twofold: - It's slow. Really slow. If they can get a 2-3x performance improvement overall throughout webOS, they can actually compete with Apple. So far it's just not snappy enough to be a pleasant experience. - The marketing sucked. Seriously, what the hell. It's almost as if they went out of the way to convince you to no…
How long ago was this? Things have gotten a lot faster esp with recent releases. Plus if you overclock, it's actually faster than the 3GS on the JS benchmarks.
> " faster than the 3GS on the JS benchmarks."
That may be true - but is it faster than the 3GS on native apps benchmarks? Most of the iPhone's strength is not in its browser, it's how snappy the UI is on its variety of native apps.
Wow, amazed that it is worth 1.2 Billion. Not that I dislike Palm, but I suspect for 1 Billion, you could write several WebOS from scratch.
By the time you're done writing and testing a new webOS, the market would have changed and the serious contenders established. Right now it's still up for grabs.
The market of non-Appe users, that is? :-)
OK, but if time is of a premium, why not just use Android, as it's free? Or build on top of Android?
I have to think that HP could just throw $100m at the problem and build an embedded OS that's far better than Palm, without having to take on the assets of a long-since failed corporation.
If they had started 3 years ago maybe. HP is not a software company in any significant way. Look at how many years of development Apple & Google, both very good software companies, needed to build their platforms. WebOS is at least a legitimate competitor today.
That's sort of a ridiculous statement. HP probably has far, far more software under active maintenance than Google, and maybe than Apple. Do you understand how many different products HP maintains software for between management tools, firmwares, device drivers? They've also bought a number of large enterprise software companies over the past decade.
If they had started 3 years ago maybe. HP is not a software company in any significant way. Look at how many years of development Apple & Google, both very good software companies, needed to build their platforms. WebOS is at least a legitimate competitor today.
That's sort of a ridiculous statement. HP probably has far, far more software under active maintenance than Google, and maybe than Apple. Do you understand how many different products HP maintains software for between management tools, firmwares, device drivers? They've also bought a number of large enterprise software companies over the past decade.
Yes I suppose I should have said a "consumer software company" to be more clear. There's a world of difference between enterprise/support software and consumer oriented SmartPhone platforms. Still I'm sure HP could have managed it in-house but they're working on a 4-5 year deficit of time compared to Apple and Google. $1B to catch-up overnight is not a bad deal at all. Either way they probably would have needed to pull in outside resources. I can't imagine the OpenView guys writing a SmartPhone media player or e-mail application.