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I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it

philmckinney.substack.com

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Re: I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it

#61

Post by HeckFeck »

mrweasel wrote: post #33
msgodel wrote: post #4

The absolute lack of vision in post millennium HP leadership is so toxic to innovation. It's a good case study in the pointlessness of obsessing over tech company financials.

HP had everything, hardware business, multiple CPU designs, operating system (quite a few actually), they where hiring Linux developers pretty early on, an extensive software portfolio (mostly enterprise stuff that I can do without, but companies bought it) and had I'd say fairly good working relationship with software partners, like Oracle and Microsoft. Now you have two HPs: - HPE, pretty much a shell of a company.…

> HPE

Also with one of the worst logos ever. Have you seen RECTANGLE? It encapsulates our venerable company in two dimensional space. It's at least honest - Three dimensions would imply we're solid, and four would imply that we're moving anywhere.

Re: I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it

#62

Post by mrpippy »

lesuorac wrote: post #14

> But here's the final piece of the story: Leo Apotheker was fired on September 22, 2011—just 35 days after shutting down WebOS and eleven months after taking over as CEO. The board finally recognized the systematic thinking errors that had destroyed billions in value, but it was too late for WebOS. Is this actually the case? I guess optically it might look bad to undo the WebOS but maybe just announce development of…

The same day they shut down WebOS, all the unsold hardware was cut to fire-sale prices. TouchPad was $99, and they sold out everywhere at that price.

I bought 2 at the time, sold one and used the other for a while. The hardware didn't feel as nice as the iPad 2, but it was serviceable. The software was neat and the card metaphor arguably is still more sensible than iOS/iPadOS of today. I can't see any way that HP could've been more than a distant 3rd place behind iOS/Android, but it would've been fun to see them try.

Re: I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it

#63

Post by mrweasel »

harrydehal wrote: post #58
mrweasel wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HP had everything, hardware business, multiple CPU designs, operating system (quite a few actually), they where hiring Linux developers pretty early on, an extensive software portfolio (mostly enterprise stuff that I can do without, but companies bought it) and had I'd say fairly good working relationship with software partners, like Oracle and Microsoft. Now you have two HPs: - HPE, pretty much a shell of a company.…

Worth pointing out that HPE also acquired Aruba Networks and Juniper Networks – not sure how both those networking portfolios look like post-acquisition.

True, both are solid networking companies in my opinion. Juniper is already slipping on support and pricing though, and we'll be replacing all our Juniper gear starting this summer.

Re: I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it

#64

Post by whatever1 »

jldugger wrote: post #56
whatever1 wrote: post #49

Come on, nothing had a chance to compete with the iPhone in 2011. By then Apple had released iPhone 5 (edit iPhone4S), a slick & snappy device with robust app ecosystem that everyone wanted (but most could not afford). There was no place for high end players. Regardless of that CTOs ability to integrate HP and Palm, whatever they would build, it would be DOA. Unless if they tried to compete with the cheap android dev…

iPhone 4s shipped October 2011.

Oh you are right, I remembered 4 was released in 2010, and my mind jumped to 5. But they were doing the s cycles back then.

Re: I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it

#65

Post by [deleted] »

stuff4ben wrote: post #7

If 1.2 billion dollars in valuation was destroyed in 49 days because the CTO wasn't there, there's something to be said about the CTO's inability to delegate and ensure they have a team that supports their decisions and vision and can carry on without them. "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

[deleted]

Re: I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it

#66

Post by Jtsummers »

stuff4ben wrote: post #7

If 1.2 billion dollars in valuation was destroyed in 49 days because the CTO wasn't there, there's something to be said about the CTO's inability to delegate and ensure they have a team that supports their decisions and vision and can carry on without them. "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

Taking the story at face value, the issue isn't necessarily delegation. If the C-suite is making a decision and one of their primary people (CTO in this case) is absent, it almost doesn't matter who he delegates to. The delegated individual is not their peer, so whatever they say will be discounted. I've been in that situation (as the delegated individual) several times. It's frustrating. Even if they respect you, you don't get a vote in the final decision.

Re: I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it

#67

Post by mrweasel »

HeckFeck wrote: post #61
mrweasel wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HP had everything, hardware business, multiple CPU designs, operating system (quite a few actually), they where hiring Linux developers pretty early on, an extensive software portfolio (mostly enterprise stuff that I can do without, but companies bought it) and had I'd say fairly good working relationship with software partners, like Oracle and Microsoft. Now you have two HPs: - HPE, pretty much a shell of a company.…

> HPE Also with one of the worst logos ever. Have you seen RECTANGLE? It encapsulates our venerable company in two dimensional space. It's at least honest - Three dimensions would imply we're solid, and four would imply that we're moving anywhere.

Oh shit, that's their logo? I don't exactly know what I though it was, but I didn't consider that it might be their logo.

Re: I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it

#68

Post by [deleted] »

refulgentis wrote: post #39

It's pretty easy to pattern-match LLM writing even when there's been a lot of work put into it, and it wasn't one-shotted by the LLM. I bring this up because this is a very smart person, with an interesting story I've been waiting to hear for years, and an important point, but I couldn't read it. Not because LLMs were involved: whatever, that's fine. First, I'm reading then get an uneasy feeling when I see the "That…

[deleted]

Re: I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it

#69

Post by iconara »

> "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 market, lacking the polish that could have helped it compete."

He claims to have been working with Palm closely for a year, yet he somehow must have missed how bad things were. The product was a week or two away from launch when he had to step away. To me it sounds like the bad decisions had already been made.

Re: I convinced HP's board to buy Palm and watched them kill it

#70

Post by kccqzy »

jerf wrote: post #20
JKCalhoun wrote: post #5

> WebOS—true multitasking when iOS and Android couldn't handle it Am I missing something?

Your question is unclear but I assume you are thinking that iOS has always supported "multitasking". This is not the case. iOS4 introduced it on the iPhone side, and this is how AnandTech [1] describes it: "To switch between apps on the iOS3 you hit the home button, which takes you home, and then select your next app. Your previous app, assuming it isn’t one of a very limited list of apps that have services that can…

Prior to true multitasking on iOS, Apple would tell you to tag view controllers for preservation so that when your app launches, the OS will restore the original view controllers, as if the app has been running the whole time. Old documentation here: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/featuredarticles...

(These days few apps bother to do this anymore. I switch away from an app in a minute and upon switching back I'm back at the app's home screen.)

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