Comments on: HPQ – size 12s

By: windsorr

windsorr — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 08:32:14 +0000

These are good points…The problem is that HPQ wont be able to eek out an existence on low margin PCs anymore. This is because the PC business is declining and changing. HPQ does not have what it takes to offer interesting products and so I think it will lose maret share and hence margins will decline further…It has to stand up and do something…just chugging along wont work anymore.

By: tatilsever

tatilsever — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 17:21:58 +0000

I did not mean that as a dig to Microsoft, but as part of the discussion about the limited options HP had. It needs to get into tablets and if it wants to continue as a hardware maker without its own OS, its options are limited to Android and Windows. Neither presents great differentiation opportunities, but HP is used to this handicap as a traditional PC maker. The economies of scale it has attained there will probably be applicable to tablet hardware to a large extent, allowing HP to eke out a living in that market, similar to how it does in PCs. Within that straitjacket, Android is by far the more popular OS on ARM based systems (compared to Windows) and it at least allows proprietary skins and add-on features (Exchange support or running two apps side by side as Samsung did). I don’t see this move as controversial or ill thought out, but just as further confirmation that WinRT has failed to get much traction.

Of course, it would be better if HP had a more concrete plan for differentiation and its board was cleaned up, but compared to the many other boneheaded moves it made recently, this one is not all that bad.

By: windsorr

windsorr — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 07:00:26 +0000

you could indeed…However Microsoft has not written off and closed down the Windows 8 assets like HPQ has done.

By: tatilsever

tatilsever — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 16:00:46 +0000

Well, you could make the exact same arguments about Win8 tablets. 🙂 Worse, the demand for Win8 is reportedly disappointing.

Acquisition of Palm was risky, but the pay off could be big for a hardware company trying to differentiate itself from the pack. That move may actually have been well thought out. Too bad acquiring CEO was not the same as the one who was entrusted with it.