HP to drop WebOS and PC's
 

Is HP off the rails? Latest flip-flop kills tablets, dumps PCs

I feel for those who bought into the WebOS tablet.

And I thought the MS/VZ Kin was a train wreck. I wonder why they even bother with launching the TouchPad. I am sure the retailers are thrill with the news.

Will companies ever learn to not try to compete at Apple's price point.

When their new CEO joined them last fall coming from the software giant SAP, it was pretty obvious their destiny would be in the cloud and enterprise software and not no margin PC's.

Their tablet was a joke, a huge money suck.

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That is a really good point. It will be interesting to see if Google will have learned it when they start selling their own hardware. I'm guessing they have.

I don't think the world needed yet another company selling commodity PCs anyway. Too bad that this is the end of the line for Palm / WebOS.

Well, they are the largest seller of PCs according to what I just read on CNN.

The announcement actually doesn't say _that_ it says "In addition, HP reported that it plans to announce that it will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward."

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/pr...1/110818b.html

-----Burton

Lip service, IMHO. Who's going to pay for webOS knowing that at best it's a distant third place and Android is widely available to anyone who wants to build a device?

It's a shame because webOS is really a great platform.

Yes, which makes this recent shift all the more drastic as they absorbed Compaq specifically to jump to the front of the PC business.

Actually Apple is the largest mobile PC maker now, with a 21% market share.

http://www.cultofmac.com/as-hp-looks...c-maker/109458

Which is meaningless. Given HP's past record with supporting their mobile devices, this was a death sentence for WebOS.

No one who follows these things will buy a HP tablet knowing the OS is a dead end.

Funny thing I've seen the HP tablet commercials with Russel Brand & Manny Pacquiao today. I guess the marketing dept didn't get the word. :)

Exactly, these days if no developers willing to build apps for the OS/devices, it is game over. No developers willing to put in any effort to develop anything when the main/only backer is pulling the plug.

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Yes, I didn't say mobile.

Luckily, as this decision clearly demonstrates, that wasn't too many folks...

Regards

I think this is interesting for another reason - what the heck is Enterprise going to purchase now for their desktop needs?

Most large enterprises I know tend to purchase HP for the workers as well as in the server room. Will these large enterprises now switch to Dell? Lenovo? After that I think all we have really is Acer, Asus and maybe one or two others. But all of these companies, to my mind at least, seem to be far more geared to the consumer world and not so much enterprise. Dell stands apart a bit from the other companies I just mentioned but even Dell seems weak relative to HP for enterprise needs.

When you really take a hard look at Intel-based hardware, the best in terms of specs and build quality is none other than Apple. But who wants to run Windows full-time on Apple? I know that if I got an Apple at work, I'd want to run OS X as much as I could.

Will enterprise dare to buy Apple now that HP is no longer an option?

If I was Microsoft, I'd be concerned about HP's exit.

Also that nice Lea Michele girl from Glee. They are in the middle of a very broad network ad flight. I guess it's all bought and paid for already. Pity the many customers who don't read the trades and will go out and buy the thing in the next month or two, thinking they're investing in a new platform when they're really helping HP burn off orphan stock.

Dell has burned a lot of bridges with the enterprise in the last five years. But maybe the PC landscape, like the US airline landscape, is boiling down to a few major players who are all not-great choices. Apple excluded -- I don't think Apple will ever be a volume enterprise solution.

A friend bought a Touch Pad and Veer last week. He reads the trades, so he's returning them this weekend (very reluctantly--he likes WebOS more than iOS or Android).

Two weeks ago, my sister, a Palm user for about 7 years, upgraded to a Droid phone.

Will they still make printers?

Dell passed HP in server market share in 2009, so they will certainly welcome picking up more of the business.

Whoever HP sells the business to will also certainly be a player, of course that remains to be seen.

The current plan according to the Wall Street Journal is they will keep the storage and printer business.

Massive fire sale at hp.com

16gb Touch Pad - $99
32gb Touch Pad - $149

http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3220862

With coupon, I got a 16gb for $88 including tax and free shipping.

But why?

It's probably worth it at $99 or less, even without future support.

For $99 or less, I'm sure I will find a use for it.

Where did you get your coupon from?

Thanks:)

Stupid move from HP. Hurd moved them into a corner and didnt have the vision to invest in mobile and tablets.

Curious when the printer business will die

Indeed why would anyone purchase something without an apple logo :rolleyes:


There's a webos kindle app with a coupon this is the cheapest tablet dreaded currently. $99 is cheap

I am looking to b uy some but none of the local brick and mortar stores know of the sale yet :(

Your fear of Apple is duly noted.

However, the question remains. WHY by into a dead product? Did you run out and invest in Betamax when Sony discontinued it? Why buy a tablet with no future support, no new apps, nothing?

At some price, web, mail and Kindle alone is a good buy.

It's a bad analogy. This dead technology has a superior UI to iOS and Android and will keep delivering content competently for years even without updates. Further, there is still a vibrant homebrew dev community.

Lastly, the Touchpad can run ubuntu Linux and with this surge of devices out in the wild, someone is bound to port Android to the device.

For $300 it's not worth it. For $99 or less, it's a good deal.

EDIT: I forgot to add that Touchpad comes with a lifetime 50GB box.net account, so it's worth it just for that.

Cringley's article is an excellent overview of how HP lost their way.

http://www.cringely.com/2011/08/losing-the-hp-way/

My own thoughts:

It seems like many once-great tech companies reach a certain size, get a second-generation CEO, and lose their ability to make wise strategic decisions.

DEC
Motorola
Sun
HP
Dell (before the second coming)
Apple (before the second coming)
EDS
Cisco
Yahoo
eBay

Microsoft seems something of an exception - they continue to pile up the cash through not-really-amazing software despite their many missteps into hardware of all kinds.

Google - will they suffer a similar fate?

HP has dropped the price on their site without needing a coupon now. Both are currently out of stock, but if it's true that stores are sending them back by the pallet full, more will probably become available.

The 32 GB one for $149
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/sh...Pad&aoid=35252

The 16 GB one for $99
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/sh...GB_HP_TouchPad

I will say, that thread on slick deals was amazing to watch last night. If you clicked on last page, by the time you finished reading the dozen or so posts on that page of the thread, there were two more pages. For a while, you could not read fast enough to keep up with the new posts, with multiple pages of posts all having the same time stamp.

As of right now, the rate is still about 60 posts/minute. I believe they hit one million page views in under five hours.

Yes. I worked with DEC equipment for years so it was sad to see them get consumed by Compaq, then eventually HP.

Its rather hilarious to watch MS screw up almost everything they do. Zune, Kin, WP7....

Hard to call with Google. They have diversified into so many areas so fast.

If you are patient, you can get an order through HP's SMB website. I accidentally ordered five 32gb (only needed two), but didn't want to spend another hour refreshing to correct the quantity.

It looks like I been trying to order one for a few hours, I hope HP has a few hundred thousand in stock :)

Yesterday morning, bestBUY refused to reduce their prices to the level mandated by HP. Around 6pm CST, they had changed their minds and were offering them at the correct price to customers and employees. Debating whether to camp-out at the nearest store now to beg for their crumbs, wait for HP to make them available again online/direct, or bag the whole issue.

Breaking News: Scored 1 online @ BB (99 plus tax). Will pickup @ store tomorrow. Hope it's not DOA.

HP SMB has 32gb models available now.

http://shopping1.hp.com/is-bin/INTER...nkCrossSelling

Link to Best Buy...

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olstempl...c=abcat0500000

Picked up a $99 HP for my 3 year old. Now I can trade her iPad and give it to my Mom, since it is nothing more than a fashion accessory.

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Why dont you sell the iPad and buy Touch pads for the whole family?