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A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm

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Re: A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm

#81

Post by hboon »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #80
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…

> All PC makers are on razor thin margins... I keep hearing this but then think I saved 30% by building my own PC so it doesn't ring true. Also I would expect HP to get parts at least 10-20% cheaper than a consumer increasing this margin. And the time assembling is not that much to warrant additional costs. Maybe because I have a high end rig there are some margins here... but in this context it feels like there are…

There's also branding, marketing, advertising, floor space, sales staff, call center and after-sales support, as well as management time that your supplier didn't have to pay for (or not as much for).

Re: A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm

#82

Post by ugh »

teyc wrote: post #79
nutjob123 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its my understanding that the touchpad could actually print documents to a lot of HP printers

and they didn't bother to tell anyone about it?

Printing is not the killer feature you think it is – especially for a device like a tablet (consumption oriented and in many cases a great replacement for paper).

Re: A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm

#83

Post by teyc »

ugh wrote: post #82
teyc wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and they didn't bother to tell anyone about it?

Printing is not the killer feature you think it is – especially for a device like a tablet (consumption oriented and in many cases a great replacement for paper).

I know of several enterprise customer asking for iPad apps but come up with WTF it can't print?

Re: A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm

#84

Post by bradleyland »

allertonm wrote: post #47
bradleyland wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Perhaps so, but in this case you don't have to look too closely. Autonomy & SAP have similar customers , true. But the suggestion in Gruber's post is that the purchase of Autonomy is a substitute for a purchase of SAP. Which is a bit like saying the purchase of a front drivers side door mirror is a substitute for the purchase of a car. (Downvotes too, jeez.)

I'm stating this earnestly to try and explain why I think you're receiving a negative reaction. You'll chose how to take it. I sincerely mean no offense by it.

You're being downvoted because you are arguing a point that no one is making.

No one is saying that SAP and Autonomy are in the same business.

It's almost like you're choosing not to get it, just so you can talk about the differences between SAP and Autonomy.

This is, more or less, the thesis of Gruber's post:

> The thing is, Apotheker’s relevant experience was serving as CEO of SAP. What’s SAP? SAP is an enterprise software and consulting company. Honestly, we all should have seen this coming. You don’t bring in an enterprise consulting guy to turn around a PC and device maker. You bring in an enterprise consulting guy to turn a PC and device maker into an enterprise consulting company.

The only portion of the post where Gruber makes even a remotely questionable comparison is this statement:

> Autonomy — a company I’d never heard of before but which more or less sounds like a rival to SAP

He off-handedly likens Autonomy to SAP. Maybe that's wrong, but it doesn't matter.

Follow us all here:

Fact: HP was a hardware products company.

Fact: Apotheker was head of SAP, an "enterprise consulting" company.

Inference: Apotheker is going to take HP in an "enterprise consulting" direction, not a "hardware products" direction.

Arguing whether Autonomy and SAP are the same business is tangential to the point.

Re: A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm

#85

Post by RyanMcGreal »

j_baker wrote: post #65
bad_user wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The board of directors fired Steve Jobs because of the company's poor performance. It wasn't as if it went downhill only after Steve left.

No they didn't. They fired Steve Jobs because they didn't get along with him. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/06/06/why-i-fired...

FTA:

> Sculley wrestled with low Macintosh sales and a need to bring some order to the creative chaos Jobs had unleashed. Sculley found that he couldn’t rein in Jobs—and decided he had to go.

Sounds like both explanations were true.

Re: A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm

#86

Post by ugh »

teyc wrote: post #83
ugh wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Printing is not the killer feature you think it is – especially for a device like a tablet (consumption oriented and in many cases a great replacement for paper).

I know of several enterprise customer asking for iPad apps but come up with WTF it can't print?

It can! But only to specific HP printers (just like the TouchPad). Printing is one of those things that’s nice to have but ultimately not a (lone) deciding factor.

Currently all implementations suck if you don’t have one of the few supported HP printers†. Maybe a more encompassing solution would have helped the TouchPad (for example the ability to use any printer in the network) but I doubt that for such a feature alone TouchPads would have sold that much better.

Apple already had a feature implemented (in one of their betas) that allowed you to use printers connected to your Macs but they ditched it for some reason. Maybe technical reasons? Maybe politics? (Could they have a deal with HP?)

Having one (or even a few) HP printers that support the TouchPad – as you suggested – is demonstrably not good enough. The TouchPad flopped regardless.

—

† Android is a different story but as far as I can see not a very pleasant one.

Re: A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm

#88

Post by ugh »

arethuza wrote: post #71
allertonm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Don't know why you are being downvoted - I'm mystified as to why people think there would be much overlap between what SAP does and what Autonomy does.

Because they are losing sight of the point.

Re: A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm

#89

Post by ansy »

ugh wrote: post #86
teyc wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know of several enterprise customer asking for iPad apps but come up with WTF it can't print?

It can! But only to specific HP printers (just like the TouchPad). Printing is one of those things that’s nice to have but ultimately not a (lone) deciding factor. Currently all implementations suck if you don’t have one of the few supported HP printers†. Maybe a more encompassing solution would have helped the TouchPad (for example the ability to use any printer in the network) but I doubt that for such a feature al…

Guys, it's called AirPrint and Apple advertises it quite visibly. It's one of the major features of iOS 4. You can see an extensive tout for it on Apple's website here

http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/airprint.html

All of the printers that support AirPrint are made by HP. AirPrint is really just an adapter on top of HP's proprietary ePrint. I believe ePrint even lets you send documents to the printer over email from a computer or any other device.

http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/us/en/ipg/HPeprint-solu...

Google Android also has an adapter to directly print to HP's ePrint printers through Google's Cloud Print

http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/hp-eprint-google-c...

Normally Cloud Print for Android (or any other device) works by running a print server which is bundled with the Chrome web browser on a Windows PC connected to a normal printer. Instead with ePrint the network print server exists on the printer itself so you can send documents to it directly.

Obviously, the HP TouchPad works with ePrint natively out of the box. So all of these mobile operating systems are designed to work with the same line of printers which are all made by HP.

Technically, Android can work with more printers assuming you want to rely on a Windows box to act as your print server.

Re: A Simple Explanation for Why HP Abandoned Palm

#90

Post by ugh »

ansy wrote: post #89
ugh wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can! But only to specific HP printers (just like the TouchPad). Printing is one of those things that’s nice to have but ultimately not a (lone) deciding factor. Currently all implementations suck if you don’t have one of the few supported HP printers†. Maybe a more encompassing solution would have helped the TouchPad (for example the ability to use any printer in the network) but I doubt that for such a feature al…

Guys, it's called AirPrint and Apple advertises it quite visibly. It's one of the major features of iOS 4. You can see an extensive tout for it on Apple's website here http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/airprint.html All of the printers that support AirPrint are made by HP. AirPrint is really just an adapter on top of HP's proprietary ePrint. I believe ePrint even lets you send documents to the printer over email fro…

Sure, and? I didn’t know about all the Android stuff but I said the rest correctly, didn’t I?
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