This guy sounds out of touch on several dimensions... There is something about folks who spend a very long time in a declining business. Their world view seems to diverge from reality.
I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it
211–220 of 517 posts
Re: I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Windows phones were incredible, the OS was the most responsive at the time by far. No apps though. They were building in Android app support when they pulled the plug.
Upvoted as my experience was similar. I owned 3 windows phones over the years and they were always an absolute joy. The UI was very polished, the call quality was terrific, the camera was awesome, and it did have plenty of apps even if it was a tiny percentage of android or iPhone. To be honest though, I've never been one to care about apps. My experience was anyone who actually took the time to play with one loved i…
While I agree that Windows phone was actually quite nice, I wish they didn't have to kill Meego to make it by planting a mole CEO at Nokia.
If you think Windows phone was great you should have seen the Nokia N9. Still one of the best phones I ever owned.
Re: I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Microsoft released their Windows phone in 2012, again killing it before it took off That 2011 iPAQ has a Windows button. Wikipedia lists them as running "Windows Mobile".
I may remember my dates wrong... Close enough for this discussion though.
No, I think you're right. Wikipedia suggests that "Windows Phone" (the operating system) came out the following year, replacing Windows Mobile.
Re: I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those units weren’t unsold. They went for ridiculously low prices and everyone went nuts trying to buy one (edit: this isn’t even an exaggeration. People were buying up multiple tablets. Even buying non-discounted tablets then asking for price-matching afterwards) Ironically this showed that there was demand for webOS. It was just priced wrongly from the outset
> Ironically this showed that there was demand for webOS. It was just priced wrongly from the outset I think the frenzy at the discounted price showed there was demand for a 10" tablet for $99 rather than interest in WebOS. Besides the $499 iPad I don't think there were any other 10" tablets around. People like watching TV and movies on tablets. Not everyone has space or wants a bedroom TV. Not everyone wants to watc…
> I think the frenzy at the discounted price showed there was demand for a 10" tablet for $99 rather than interest in WebOS.
That’s basically what I meant. Albeit that I was emphasising that people are also happy with something that wasn’t iOS / Android if the price was right.
Re: I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
The price was likely too high, though that is debatable. However the real take away is if you want something like this to work out you need to invest in to for years. There is nothing wrong with getting the size of the market wrong by that much - it happens too often for anyone to call it wrong. It isn't clear what was predicted, but marketing should have predicted a range of units sold (and various price points havi…
Windows phones were incredible, the OS was the most responsive at the time by far. No apps though. They were building in Android app support when they pulled the plug.
It also had the best “swipe” text typing mode for Turkish. iPhone got it very recently and it’s close to useless and Android one was meh last I checked.
Re: I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it
#216I need this part explained to me. And it's about why I still believe in HP despite everything that went wrong. This utterly baffles me. [checks] The post isn't 25y old. Author is obviously intelligent and posses self awareness and analytical skills. The only way that remark makes sense: 1) HP has some enterprise division that makes stuff I'll never see and 2) Author is Enterprise only doesn't know their consumer divi…
These were my exact thoughts about HPs printer division. These should be studied in bussiness schools as the definition of enshitification for the next 25 years.
PC side of HP is a different story. Their high end consumer laptops are crap compared to dells xps line.
Comodity/Enterprise gear is equivalent to Dell (primary competitor) at the generic box and monitor level. Maybe a bit better on the power supply and managemet side. Worse if you bought into VMWARE ecosystem.
So I thought HP…meh…dying company with legendary history of innovation in the 80s and 90s.
Then I bought an HP z840 workstation for homelab. This thing is a beast. Engineered out the wazoo! Three pcix16 slots, 1+ TB RAM, 40+ cores. Documentation for days. Way better than similar era Dells.
At least in the late 2010s they still had it, for the right price. For sure not unusable or any where near awful…even 10+ year old kit.
Ive got no idea about gear in the last 3 years or how they will do financially going forward. But if you are looking at the used market, the enterprise workstation gear in the late 2010s has tons of value.
Re: I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pivoted to shilling halfway down. And the acquisition was entirely incompetent. These devices need a software ecosystem. Purchasing the company without the acquirer having a bought-in plan to build that ecosystem was just dumb. And that would have required a company willing to lose money likely for half a decade minimum.
> But because I wasn't there during the critical 49 days when the decision was made to kill WebOS, somehow the failure became my responsibility. Wow, so whiney. He's an executive, a leader. A captain doesn't complain if the crew is mad at him, for any reason.
Exactly! It is your responsibility, like it or not. That’s what the money’s for!
Re: I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it
#218> "Then, in late June 2011 […] I faced a medical emergency requiring immediate surgery and a eight-week recovery period confined to bed. […] On July 1, 2011, HP launched the TouchPad tablet running WebOS 3.0 […] The launch was botched from the start. HP priced the TouchPad at $499 to compete directly with the iPad, but without the app ecosystem or marketing muscle to justify that premium. The device felt rushed to ma…
The price was likely too high, though that is debatable. However the real take away is if you want something like this to work out you need to invest in to for years. There is nothing wrong with getting the size of the market wrong by that much - it happens too often for anyone to call it wrong. It isn't clear what was predicted, but marketing should have predicted a range of units sold (and various price points havi…
To me that was the issue, they wanted a 'me too' product without the belief behind to back it.. it was a fine device at the time, a little nicer than all the android tablets around.
Re: I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
The price was likely too high, though that is debatable. However the real take away is if you want something like this to work out you need to invest in to for years. There is nothing wrong with getting the size of the market wrong by that much - it happens too often for anyone to call it wrong. It isn't clear what was predicted, but marketing should have predicted a range of units sold (and various price points havi…
Windows phones were incredible, the OS was the most responsive at the time by far. No apps though. They were building in Android app support when they pulled the plug.
My Nokia Lumia 521 running Windows was the best phone I've ever owned. But when MS bought Nokia, they pushed out an update that made it really slow and buggy.
Re: I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it
#220> "Then, in late June 2011 […] I faced a medical emergency requiring immediate surgery and a eight-week recovery period confined to bed. […] On July 1, 2011, HP launched the TouchPad tablet running WebOS 3.0 […] The launch was botched from the start. HP priced the TouchPad at $499 to compete directly with the iPad, but without the app ecosystem or marketing muscle to justify that premium. The device felt rushed to ma…
That’s a little uncharitable I think, you could know all those issues and be hoping that marketing and management will hold off on a launch until things are set. And the pricing made a huge difference - at 250, it would have been a different story I think!
A CTO shouldn’t be “hoping”, a CTO should have been influencing those decisions (including pricing) all along. If he only realized the price was wrong when the product hit the shelves (while he was in bed recovering), then he has no place in lecturing others on their lack of strategic perspective.