Nowhere did I say that markets were restricted to people in their right minds.
I'm not really understanding your point then, because it's the market compensating for very significant changes in demand. Just because HP set the fire sale price at $99 doesn't mean the actual value will settle there once they're all sold out.
Kind of funny that you chose to ignore the second half of my post, I think the real truth is that you don't understand the complexity of market economics here.
If they are obligated to pay $220 in component costs for a certain fixed number anyway, they might as well make the $100 on whatever they can. The loss is lower, no?
Coming on the heels of the weird PC division decision (spinoff? sale? when? why? to whom?) it smacks of such a poorly thought-out and hastily implemented set of decisions, that it makes you wonder about the quality of the CEO and the board. The latter, of course, has repeatedly messed-up, it would seem - e.g., the spying scandal, the Mark Hurd scandal.
I am truly surprised that large shareholders are not taking them to the woodshed.
Agreed, I thought some of Palm's decision making was mental, at least they could play the "small company" card. HP? Not quite. I bought a Touchpad and a Pre 3 on Preorder, had the difference refunded between the £89 (I'm in the UK) of the Touchpad and they priced the Pre 3 at £69 - versus the initial £399 I was charged, that went down to £299 on purchase. I ended up with the tablet and the phone for £150. Bloody good deal.
Kind of funny that you chose to ignore the second half of my post, I think the real truth is that you don't understand the complexity of market economics here.
Not at all. Stringing together nostrums about markets constitutes neither an explanation nor a defense of inherently irrational behavior.
Not at all. Stringing together nostrums about markets constitutes neither an explanation nor a defense of inherently irrational behavior.
As for market value, it's not hard to explain the mechanics. The tablets, a few hundred of thousands of them, sold out in just a weekend, most sellers sold out in hours of a price reduction. I think it follows that HP priced them considerably below their market value given the supply they had, just as HP's original price was apparently above market value at the time for the supply they had.
Anyway, when they're sold out, any notion that HP's fire sale price has influence on their market price is out the window. There's no guarantee that a given person is going to get the new batch, either, I bet anyone buying one at a high price now probably isn't aware of this news, so there's a bit of information lag going on there. The psychology is something different.
Your points that it's irrational is valid, the device being EOL and all, but the market value is what it is. But given that it was always a glorified web browser and media player anyway, I expect it to have a little more value than you give credit, HTML 5, etc. is going to stick around for a while.
Don't take this personally because I honestly don't mean it to be insulting, but I cannot get my head around the logic of people like you and others buying these things at any price. I wouldn't pay $10 for a Touchpad because I know it's a dead-end and failed in the market and would probably just collect dust. I just don't understand the thinking of jumping on a failed product because it's suddenly cheaper than it was a week ago.
Way back in the 90s when Dennis Miller was still funny, he had a great joke in his stand-up routine that sums this up. "Don't you just love cheap clothing stores that give you 2-for-1 sales? Hey folks, two of sh*t is sh*t. If they really want to f*ck you, they'll give you 3."
Sums up exactly how I feel about the Touchpad at $99. I've got better things to spend a hundred bucks on and I just don't get the frenzy to snap these things up.
I personally had no desire for a tablet, just as expensive as a low-end laptop, but running a smartphone OS, and about as powerful. Yeh. At $500/600, I wasn't going to throw my money at an iPad, TP, Transformer, etc. They seem cool, but I could never justify the actual cost/benefit, when I would compare them to my phone/laptop combo.
However, as a cheap web/e-mail/e-book/movies/photos, this 32 GB TP I have fits the bill. I was at one time tossing up between a Kindle, Nook Color, or the new Nook, but this is even cheaper. It also helped that I've been a fan of webOS and a Pre+ user.
webOS is an odd duck otherwise, beautiful design, the mobile OS I've preferred above the rest, but controlled by the stupidest companies. I really don't care about Android getting ported over, I find it ugly, and the TP performs better than I expected (Flash runs well on YT, Hulu, ESPN3), and fits the rest of the web/e-mail/photo/movie reqs.
I still really don't see the point of tablets, but at ~$200 including shipping and a case, I'm not out a lot either, but I'm a bit biased because I'm a webOS user, and I knew most of what to expect. I probably won't consider a tablet again, until they actually because as powerful as mid-range laptops (wake me up when I can edit RAW files in something like Lightroom with relative speed).
Comments
Nowhere did I say that markets were restricted to people in their right minds.
I'm not really understanding your point then, because it's the market compensating for very significant changes in demand. Just because HP set the fire sale price at $99 doesn't mean the actual value will settle there once they're all sold out.
I'm not really understanding your point then, ...
Obviously.
Obviously.
Kind of funny that you chose to ignore the second half of my post, I think the real truth is that you don't understand the complexity of market economics here.
If they are obligated to pay $220 in component costs for a certain fixed number anyway, they might as well make the $100 on whatever they can. The loss is lower, no?
Coming on the heels of the weird PC division decision (spinoff? sale? when? why? to whom?) it smacks of such a poorly thought-out and hastily implemented set of decisions, that it makes you wonder about the quality of the CEO and the board. The latter, of course, has repeatedly messed-up, it would seem - e.g., the spying scandal, the Mark Hurd scandal.
I am truly surprised that large shareholders are not taking them to the woodshed.
Agreed, I thought some of Palm's decision making was mental, at least they could play the "small company" card. HP? Not quite. I bought a Touchpad and a Pre 3 on Preorder, had the difference refunded between the £89 (I'm in the UK) of the Touchpad and they priced the Pre 3 at £69 - versus the initial £399 I was charged, that went down to £299 on purchase. I ended up with the tablet and the phone for £150. Bloody good deal.
Kind of funny that you chose to ignore the second half of my post, I think the real truth is that you don't understand the complexity of market economics here.
Not at all. Stringing together nostrums about markets constitutes neither an explanation nor a defense of inherently irrational behavior.
Not at all. Stringing together nostrums about markets constitutes neither an explanation nor a defense of inherently irrational behavior.
As for market value, it's not hard to explain the mechanics. The tablets, a few hundred of thousands of them, sold out in just a weekend, most sellers sold out in hours of a price reduction. I think it follows that HP priced them considerably below their market value given the supply they had, just as HP's original price was apparently above market value at the time for the supply they had.
Anyway, when they're sold out, any notion that HP's fire sale price has influence on their market price is out the window. There's no guarantee that a given person is going to get the new batch, either, I bet anyone buying one at a high price now probably isn't aware of this news, so there's a bit of information lag going on there. The psychology is something different.
Your points that it's irrational is valid, the device being EOL and all, but the market value is what it is. But given that it was always a glorified web browser and media player anyway, I expect it to have a little more value than you give credit, HTML 5, etc. is going to stick around for a while.
Don't take this personally because I honestly don't mean it to be insulting, but I cannot get my head around the logic of people like you and others buying these things at any price. I wouldn't pay $10 for a Touchpad because I know it's a dead-end and failed in the market and would probably just collect dust. I just don't understand the thinking of jumping on a failed product because it's suddenly cheaper than it was a week ago.
Way back in the 90s when Dennis Miller was still funny, he had a great joke in his stand-up routine that sums this up. "Don't you just love cheap clothing stores that give you 2-for-1 sales? Hey folks, two of sh*t is sh*t. If they really want to f*ck you, they'll give you 3."
Sums up exactly how I feel about the Touchpad at $99. I've got better things to spend a hundred bucks on and I just don't get the frenzy to snap these things up.
I personally had no desire for a tablet, just as expensive as a low-end laptop, but running a smartphone OS, and about as powerful. Yeh. At $500/600, I wasn't going to throw my money at an iPad, TP, Transformer, etc. They seem cool, but I could never justify the actual cost/benefit, when I would compare them to my phone/laptop combo.
However, as a cheap web/e-mail/e-book/movies/photos, this 32 GB TP I have fits the bill. I was at one time tossing up between a Kindle, Nook Color, or the new Nook, but this is even cheaper. It also helped that I've been a fan of webOS and a Pre+ user.
webOS is an odd duck otherwise, beautiful design, the mobile OS I've preferred above the rest, but controlled by the stupidest companies. I really don't care about Android getting ported over, I find it ugly, and the TP performs better than I expected (Flash runs well on YT, Hulu, ESPN3), and fits the rest of the web/e-mail/photo/movie reqs.
I still really don't see the point of tablets, but at ~$200 including shipping and a case, I'm not out a lot either, but I'm a bit biased because I'm a webOS user, and I knew most of what to expect. I probably won't consider a tablet again, until they actually because as powerful as mid-range laptops (wake me up when I can edit RAW files in something like Lightroom with relative speed).