CRM114

Interesting that Apple's high margin strategy actually won in the end. The PC vendors killed themselves with their price wars.

CRM114

You'd want one even after reading WebOS was twice as fast on an iPad 2? Sounds like a dog to me.

Ranger

I was skeptical when IBM left the PC biz but it seems to be working out very well for them. I'm surprised HP is leaving the printer market, too.

So HP wants to compete with IBM, not Dell, is it too late for that? Maybe not. Seems like good news for Dell, but not Microsoft.

RichC2

Why do I care if it ran "twice as fast on an iPad 2"? For $100, having a solid, quick (I'll admit my use of the device has been limited, but it did everything I threw at it quickly) device for some basic web tools would work out great for the folks and to tinker around with.

al_bundy

GE and IBM aren't the same companies as they were 50 years ago. a lot of products get commoditized and american companies usually dump them to the asians.

even if HP did make a profit on each PC they sold it's still a mature no growth business that is perfect for dumping to someone else. just wait until Mac growth stops to see what apple will do with the product.

al_bundy

i would be afraid of something like amazon killing off kindle support for it in 6 months

al_bundy

not like dell is making too much money either. i predict dell will be sold off in the next 5 years as well

wmansir

Even Microsoft is moving away from the PC market with Windows 8.

CRM114

You've already seen it. Make tablets and phones.

What's surprising is that Apple never gave in to the pricing pressure. Their computers have always been expensive and still are expensive. Apple has no reason to lower the prices as their PCs are still selling in large numbers even at higher costs.

CRM114

"What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."

al_bundy

and just by coincidence dell got downgraded to sell today after releasing some OK earnings. i talked to a sales rep for one of our vendors earlier this year and noticed that he was trying to push services and not hardware like servers. if i had to guess, servers are already a commodity and services will be commoditized soon as well. all that money HP and dell spent on services companies will not be made back since there will probably be some kind of race to the bottom. wouldn't surprise me if HP bought them out to be a super competitor to IBM

Jay G.

Apple made about $5 billion in revenue from desktops and laptops this last quarter. HP made about $10 billion.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011...r-Results.html
http://images.apple.com/pr/pdf/fy11q3datasum.pdf
http://h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zh...003&highlight=

That revenue placed Apple in third place in US sales, but they don't appear in worldwide sales at all (not separated out):
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/20...mains-soft.ars

I can't find any info on what Apple's actual profits for its PC sales are though.

This is true:
http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/ar...NPD/1248313624

However, +$1000 PCs are a bit of a niche market nowadays. A profitable niche, per item, but not a large one.


Apple was in the PC business before Dell existed, and before HP got a foothold. With PCs, Apple isn't doing anything but slowly regaining the market it lost in the 80s.

Apple isn't going low end because they can't compete with cheap Windows computers on the low end, and they don't want to compete. Staying expensive also helps maintain their image as a premium product. It has zero to do with not wanting to piss off MS.


Qualcomm does use a custom architecture compared to other ARM manufacturers, who stick to the generic ARM design.
http://www.intomobile.com/2011/08/03...tom-processor/

However, if it's the same instruction set, then it doesn't matter what the internal design is, from a software standpoint. Think of it this way: Intel and AMD have different architectures, but use (mainly) the same x86/x64 instruction set. Thus programs and OSes can be run on either without customization. In fact, the only software customization for AMD or Intel is for their proprietary instruction sets.

As to the slashdot article you referenced:
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/11/0...rn-From-the-PC

It's about the hardware platforms that surround ARM processors, and it's not about the problems of customization, but the opposite: the problems with maintenance and consolidation of all the customized code.

http://www.itworld.com/mobile-wirele...truction-ahead
So the problem isn't that it's hard to customize the code to new hardware, but that it was too easy.


All this to say that if the Snapdragon CPU in the Touchpad isn't as fast as the A5 for running WebOS, it's the fault of the CPU, not the software.

Superman07

Yes, it seems odd to me that HP would ditch the two segments (phone and tablet) that are geared for nothing but growth. Why not announce a shift and drop desktops? That might make more sense. Likewise, Dell tried to mimic Apple with a premium line, but dropped that within a year since it didn't sell well. Why so quick to abandon something?? We've seen Apple fail with something like the Apple TV, but yet the continue at it before cutting their losses or making it work. ATV2 saw a huge sales increase when price and accessibility came together.

Another thing I have noticed with Dell is that they seem to be focusing on any number of products instead of their own devices. It's like they've gradually shifted into CDW. If you're on their site you have to dig about 4 layers deep to get to the monitor section and even then the Dell monitor's aren't necessarily featured. Although they have gotten a bit better about it lately. Point being their monitors sell well and are generally regarded as one of their strong points. Why hide that and make it difficult for consumers to find?

If anything I think these companies have struggled because they put out too many shoddy products. Instead of focusing on quality, they look to lowest common denominator. I do think that worked for a good part of the 2000s, but there was a shift at the end of the decade and Apple was ahead of the curve.

Jay G.

I think you're forgetting about the Macintosh LC and the ill-fate Macintosh clone program:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_LC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_clone

Jim

Everything I've read says they're not leaving the printer market. The ink is high profits for them.

Jay G.

The announcement was the HP was abandoning WebOS devices, not necessarily tablets and phones as a whole.

Before the Touchpad, HP was making a Windows Tablet called the HP Slate. They abandoned that before it reached market, but they obviously didn't abandon the tablet market as a whole.

I'm guessing HP may bounce back with either Windows Phone or Android compatible devices.

Gambit

They said they would be refocusing on cloud, solutions, and software products. They are looking to move out of the hardware business.

Chrisedge

Completely incorrect. They are thinking of selling their PSG (personal systems group) just like IBM did 5 years ago by selling off the low end PC business to Lenovo. HP will focus on networking, enterprise, servers, etc...higher margin hardware.

Cardiff Giant11

Just read that the 16gb touchpad may drop to as little as $99. At that price I might bite on it even knowing it's dead technology.

al_bundy

the new CEO is from SAP. i don't think he's going to go after the consumer market. he'll probably go after the buggy and extremely hard to implement enterprise software market.

DAC

I may have to pick one up as well. If nothing more than a web browser and e-reader

D.Pham4GLTE (>60GB)

Buy it now. the 16gb is already OOS on HP(or perhaps a holder or "test of sorts"?). The 32gb is $150 and can use $30 coupon "SAVE30HP"

Deftones

32 gb isn't showing up as $150 for me. It's showing up as $499.

Cory02

Showing up as $499 for me as well. Hopefully other stores will drop their prices, too. I wouldn't mind picking one up at this price just to play with.

Gizmo

Wow....damn cheap. Costco pulled all of them already (except the display). Pretty nuts. $100 sounds good...but you're probably better off spending a bit more and getting a used iPad.