HP is not a company with vision or long term plans, they are based on a get rich quick mentality, culture & business model, they have no hopes of success against Apple.
I'm not sure I disagree, but in terms of "what their problem is," I would point more to their stifling corporate culture (a la Microsoft), and their ponderous glacial pace in an industry where everything can change overnight. HP's idea of getting a product to market "fast" is "within a year or two."
They killed the market leading iPaq in exactly the same way.
WebOS would be doing much better at the moment if HP hadn't introduced a year and a half delay after buying Palm only to come to market with the exact same devices but with "HP" on the side. I'm sure there are people at HP with excellent and interesting plans for WebOS, but they just can't execute from within the slow-moving behemoth that is HP.
I view stability as good. Further, change for change's sake isn't always good.
EXACTLY!
iOS did have stale parts, and with each release, Apple has addressed them (the last release finally fixing the awful notification system).
There is very little that is "stale" now. However, I do believe the next step Apple needs to take is a "DashBoard" for iOS. They have taken a small step towards this with the weather app, etc on the notification screen, but they need to open it to 3rd party devs.
Also, they now need better inter-app communication. That is another part that is stale.
Its really sad when people complain about iOS being stale, and then point out the grid of icons, which means they are completely missing the point of iOS, which is that it serves as a vehicle to deliver great apps, which can convert your 3" device, or your 10" device into any possible product.
I wouldn't count HP out. In fact, I think it has the best chance of giving Apple Tablet competition. Remember, HP plans to put webOS as an alternative OS on all its computers. HP sells a lot of computers. That will give the OS exposure.
I think the product is excellent and far better than the crapfest that is Android. It's HP the company that's the problem. They have a history of knifing their own babies in the cradle.
If only someone else had bought Palm.
Still ... if Android becomes patent encumbered enough and doesn't actually start to show signs of beating iOS, people may turn to a third alternative and WebOS *is* the best alternative. It might come down to a battle between Microsoft and HP for second place if Android moves out of the picture which would be interesting.
Microsoft has a crap product, but has a history of convincing people to pay huge amounts of cash for said crap. HP has an excellent product, but a history of not being able to convince anyone to buy anything.
There is very little that is "stale" now. However, I do believe the next step Apple needs to take is a "DashBoard" for iOS. They have taken a small step towards this with the weather app, etc on the notification screen, but they need to open it to 3rd party devs.
Oh, they absolutely will. We already have extra widgets in the Notification Center on jailbroken versions of iOS 5, and that wouldn't be possible without an allowance for the frameworks to do that sort of thing by Apple.
Note that cost competition was not a factor in the MP3 player market. None of Apple's competitors were able to exhibit any significant advances by undercutting iPod prices. Even today, you can buy a 4GB iRiver player for half what a 2GB iPod shuffle costs, yet Apple dominates the MP3 player market.
Apple's secret weapon was the iTunes Music Store. An ecosystem is a big deal these days.
While you could technically use an iPod with only ripped CDs you've purchased.... the iTunes store went on to become the largest music store in the world.
You can't do much outside of web browsing on the TouchPad since there aren't many apps. And there probably won't be a huge line of cases, docks and cradles either.
As good as WebOS on the TouchPad is.... it will likely be a dead-end product.
The question is how much are they willing to lose to buy market-share. If they could buy 25% of the tablet market by selling the devices below cost that could end up being a smart move in the longer term. I doubt HP has that kind of commitment though.
Acer tried this with notebooks. We all know how this ended up - Acer stock plummeting, the CEO kicked off.
That's the problem. A regular user can't tell the difference between Android, QNX and webOS. Apple stands out and I would say microsoft phone 7 stands out. All others are pretty generic in my opinion.
BS. You've obviously never used WebOS to know what you're talking about. Android and iOS are basically the same thing, with Microsoft and HP having an actually unique experience (never dealt with QNX to comment on that one).
I'm not sure I disagree, but in terms of "what their problem is," I would point more to their stifling corporate culture (a la Microsoft), and their ponderous glacial pace in an industry where everything can change overnight. HP's idea of getting a product to market "fast" is "within a year or two."
They killed the market leading iPaq in exactly the same way.
WebOS would be doing much better at the moment if HP hadn't introduced a year and a half delay after buying Palm only to come to market with the exact same devices but with "HP" on the side. I'm sure there are people at HP with excellent and interesting plans for WebOS, but they just can't execute from within the slow-moving behemoth that is HP.
I agree, and HP has the further problem that it isn't patient with products that don't sell enough, quickly enough. Worst case, Touchpad could be gone fairly soon.
Out of the 3 operating systems I'm obviousy in the iOS camp, but I'm slightly interested in the future of WebOS. Android reminds me of too many other half-assed Linux solutions and the fragmentation just makes it look like a series of cheap iPad knock-offs (which they essentially are).
WebOS has a history behind it as a touch based OS. HP is trying some new things; I welcome it really.
Smart move by HP. Get the market share while Android still weak.
ANY tablet that is noticeably thicker and heavier than the iPad 2 is simply DOA in the market. all of them, including the TouchPad. only Samsung has been smart enough to realize that so far.
and except for rich guys and website techies, the gadget-loving early-adopter market for not-Apple tablets - which isn't that big anyway - is all tapped out. they've all bought one of these V.1 dogs of some kind by now and are stuck with it for a while. they will wait for the next generation of models/OS next year that presumably will be much better - and they have enough cash again to buy another.
HP and the others are competing in the tablet market, which is a niche market and they will do ok in it. Unfortunately they are unable to complete in the iPad market which is what the public want.
Somebody in the marketing department needs to be fired. You don't take your pants off after releasing a main stream product after 30 days! Another tablet going down in flames.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sheff
I can only think of one device that was dropping prices this fast - the KIN. Though I guess its two devices, but this is a huge price cut, bigger than android even, but not as big as google TV (it may get there).
HP has to be pretty annoyed to drop the price this much, though I don't think they are ready to kill off webOS. I heard they have a plan to start marketing it as a business device rather than consumer and maybe they want to sell out of version 1 to cut their losses before veering in another direction.
How long did it take Apple to drop the price of the original iPhone? There was no competitive product on the market at the time. And the economy was much more robust than today.
To be fair, Apple was trying to create a new market and carrier relationship where nothing similar had existed before.
But, one wonders what would have happened if Apple had not been agile enough to....
Finally, I think the quick discount of a recently introduced competitive product -- indicates the product cannot stand on its own, e.g. it is not competitive.
Smart move by HP. Get the market share while Android still weak.
I can't agree with this. I think they should work under lock qnd key until have a refinded rev 1 product not a "it's pretty good for a non-iPad tablet." is market is young and Apple is trying to make it who iPod-like monopoly. If you release clearly inferior products you aren't going to get a solid hold of the market as we can now infer from their profit slashing price cuts.
Comments
HP is not a company with vision or long term plans, they are based on a get rich quick mentality, culture & business model, they have no hopes of success against Apple.
I'm not sure I disagree, but in terms of "what their problem is," I would point more to their stifling corporate culture (a la Microsoft), and their ponderous glacial pace in an industry where everything can change overnight. HP's idea of getting a product to market "fast" is "within a year or two."
They killed the market leading iPaq in exactly the same way.
WebOS would be doing much better at the moment if HP hadn't introduced a year and a half delay after buying Palm only to come to market with the exact same devices but with "HP" on the side. I'm sure there are people at HP with excellent and interesting plans for WebOS, but they just can't execute from within the slow-moving behemoth that is HP.
I view stability as good. Further, change for change's sake isn't always good.
EXACTLY!
iOS did have stale parts, and with each release, Apple has addressed them (the last release finally fixing the awful notification system).
There is very little that is "stale" now. However, I do believe the next step Apple needs to take is a "DashBoard" for iOS. They have taken a small step towards this with the weather app, etc on the notification screen, but they need to open it to 3rd party devs.
Also, they now need better inter-app communication. That is another part that is stale.
Its really sad when people complain about iOS being stale, and then point out the grid of icons, which means they are completely missing the point of iOS, which is that it serves as a vehicle to deliver great apps, which can convert your 3" device, or your 10" device into any possible product.
I wouldn't count HP out. In fact, I think it has the best chance of giving Apple Tablet competition. Remember, HP plans to put webOS as an alternative OS on all its computers. HP sells a lot of computers. That will give the OS exposure.
I think the product is excellent and far better than the crapfest that is Android. It's HP the company that's the problem. They have a history of knifing their own babies in the cradle.
If only someone else had bought Palm.
Still ... if Android becomes patent encumbered enough and doesn't actually start to show signs of beating iOS, people may turn to a third alternative and WebOS *is* the best alternative. It might come down to a battle between Microsoft and HP for second place if Android moves out of the picture which would be interesting.
Microsoft has a crap product, but has a history of convincing people to pay huge amounts of cash for said crap. HP has an excellent product, but a history of not being able to convince anyone to buy anything.
There is very little that is "stale" now. However, I do believe the next step Apple needs to take is a "DashBoard" for iOS. They have taken a small step towards this with the weather app, etc on the notification screen, but they need to open it to 3rd party devs.
Oh, they absolutely will. We already have extra widgets in the Notification Center on jailbroken versions of iOS 5, and that wouldn't be possible without an allowance for the frameworks to do that sort of thing by Apple.
Note that cost competition was not a factor in the MP3 player market. None of Apple's competitors were able to exhibit any significant advances by undercutting iPod prices. Even today, you can buy a 4GB iRiver player for half what a 2GB iPod shuffle costs, yet Apple dominates the MP3 player market.
Apple's secret weapon was the iTunes Music Store. An ecosystem is a big deal these days.
While you could technically use an iPod with only ripped CDs you've purchased.... the iTunes store went on to become the largest music store in the world.
You can't do much outside of web browsing on the TouchPad since there aren't many apps. And there probably won't be a huge line of cases, docks and cradles either.
As good as WebOS on the TouchPad is.... it will likely be a dead-end product.
The question is how much are they willing to lose to buy market-share. If they could buy 25% of the tablet market by selling the devices below cost that could end up being a smart move in the longer term. I doubt HP has that kind of commitment though.
Acer tried this with notebooks. We all know how this ended up - Acer stock plummeting, the CEO kicked off.
That's the problem. A regular user can't tell the difference between Android, QNX and webOS. Apple stands out and I would say microsoft phone 7 stands out. All others are pretty generic in my opinion.
BS. You've obviously never used WebOS to know what you're talking about. Android and iOS are basically the same thing, with Microsoft and HP having an actually unique experience (never dealt with QNX to comment on that one).
I'm not sure I disagree, but in terms of "what their problem is," I would point more to their stifling corporate culture (a la Microsoft), and their ponderous glacial pace in an industry where everything can change overnight. HP's idea of getting a product to market "fast" is "within a year or two."
They killed the market leading iPaq in exactly the same way.
WebOS would be doing much better at the moment if HP hadn't introduced a year and a half delay after buying Palm only to come to market with the exact same devices but with "HP" on the side. I'm sure there are people at HP with excellent and interesting plans for WebOS, but they just can't execute from within the slow-moving behemoth that is HP.
I agree, and HP has the further problem that it isn't patient with products that don't sell enough, quickly enough. Worst case, Touchpad could be gone fairly soon.
WebOS has a history behind it as a touch based OS. HP is trying some new things; I welcome it really.
Apple's secret weapon was the iTunes Music Store.
Spot on. Despite people's (perhaps legitimate) complaints about iTunes becoming bloated, it's still the best thing out there.
I hope the new ecosystem -- iCloud -- is implemented as well (and no one from the dotmac/me.com had anything at all to do with it).
It's actually pretty good for their first version/attempt.
Now that's nice. Customers can tell friends how they made a smart purchasing decision by dropping $399 on a "first attempt."
ah, woot, where bad products go to get dumped. next up: the hp touchpad in a woot bag of crap.
Maybe they should rename it to woof.com or bowser.com
Smart move by HP. Get the market share while Android still weak.
ANY tablet that is noticeably thicker and heavier than the iPad 2 is simply DOA in the market. all of them, including the TouchPad. only Samsung has been smart enough to realize that so far.
and except for rich guys and website techies, the gadget-loving early-adopter market for not-Apple tablets - which isn't that big anyway - is all tapped out. they've all bought one of these V.1 dogs of some kind by now and are stuck with it for a while. they will wait for the next generation of models/OS next year that presumably will be much better - and they have enough cash again to buy another.
Maybe they should rename it to woof.com or bowser.com
Do you watch The Office?
Somebody in the marketing department needs to be fired. You don't take your pants off after releasing a main stream product after 30 days! Another tablet going down in flames.
I can only think of one device that was dropping prices this fast - the KIN. Though I guess its two devices, but this is a huge price cut, bigger than android even, but not as big as google TV (it may get there).
HP has to be pretty annoyed to drop the price this much, though I don't think they are ready to kill off webOS. I heard they have a plan to start marketing it as a business device rather than consumer and maybe they want to sell out of version 1 to cut their losses before veering in another direction.
How long did it take Apple to drop the price of the original iPhone? There was no competitive product on the market at the time. And the economy was much more robust than today.
To be fair, Apple was trying to create a new market and carrier relationship where nothing similar had existed before.
But, one wonders what would have happened if Apple had not been agile enough to....
Finally, I think the quick discount of a recently introduced competitive product -- indicates the product cannot stand on its own, e.g. it is not competitive.
Smart move by HP. Get the market share while Android still weak.
I can't agree with this. I think they should work under lock qnd key until have a refinded rev 1 product not a "it's pretty good for a non-iPad tablet." is market is young and Apple is trying to make it who iPod-like monopoly. If you release clearly inferior products you aren't going to get a solid hold of the market as we can now infer from their profit slashing price cuts.
Do you watch The Office?
Never seen it (remember, I'm an old fart) -- but that was funny... voof!