HP To Apple: You Win.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/18/apple-wins-without-throwing-a-punch/

by ssclafani • 15 years ago

103 113 15 years ago

Glad to see MG switching things up from his usual screencaps of Gladiator. If you're going to frame every tech story as a battle, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out seems more appropriate.

Legion• 15 years ago

I imagine HP will be dismayed to discover they were Glass Joe. They were shooting for Super Macho Man but they thought they were at least Don Flamenco.

dolphenstein• 15 years ago

The German Von Kaiser (WePad) seems to have been knocked out before even getting in the ring. Look forward to the next round with Piston Honda (Sony?). Of course in this new 2011 version it's not "Little Mac", it's "Absolutely Domineering Mac".

grout• 15 years ago

I believe that's "HP To Competent Businesses."

igorgue• 15 years ago

"As I write this, I’m sitting in a cafe. Around me, there are five people on laptops — four of them are MacBooks. Four other people are using tablets — all four are iPads. Welcome to the Post-PC world."

Also you live in San Francisco, I'm sitting in a cafe in Florida, and we got 2 macs (me (developer) and another guy that is a designer apparently) and 10 PC, welcome back to the PC era.

spullara• 15 years ago

Which direction do you think technology choices flow?

MatthewPhillips2• 15 years ago

Mac might be slowly gaining on Windows but it's a very slow growth.

That San Franciscans use more Macs should be a surprise to no one. Their salaries are a lot higher than people on the east coast (a few choice cities excluded). Of course their living expenses are a lot higher too; but computers cost the same no matter where you live. $1200 to a San Franciscan is a different type of purchasing decision than to someone from, say Ohio. In San Francisco $1200 is a month's rent on a studio apartment. In many parts of the east coast that's a pretty luxurious 3 bedroom condo.

teilo2• 15 years ago

I'm in Minneapolis. Same story as San Francisco.

noahc4• 15 years ago

The twin cities are known for their hipster movement. I suspect that is what is driving mac adoption over a technological choice like in the bay area.

mitchty• 15 years ago

Just to be contrarian, I'm from St Paul, its mostly macs, but sometimes you'll see a Dell as well.

andrewljohnson• 15 years ago

Nailed it!

technoslut• 15 years ago

>welcome back to the PC era

I wonder how long this lasts. When the biggest PC maker decides to exit, it should be a cause for concern for competitors who aren't Apple.

dave_sullivan• 15 years ago

I think this is less a matter of the "post PC world" as it is a matter of PC's having razor slim profit margins due to low barriers to entry and heavy competition. HP knows that and can probably put their capital to more profitable use. Apple makes great products (I have an iphone, an ipod, will probably be buying an ipad next). Still, when it comes to computers, I like to get a bit more bang for my buck than apple is willing to offer.

doctoboggan2• 15 years ago

Go sit in any college lecture hall and you will see at least 60% Apple products. Apple heavily markets toward college students (Student discounts and back to school promotions) and these same students will be buying Macs for their homes and offices soon.

jbellis• 15 years ago

Apple's been heavily marketing towards college students for 20 years. What's different about it in 2011?

bane• 15 years ago

Depends on the college. I sat in on a CS class recently at a local university and there were 2 or 3 Apple products in a lecture hall of 100 something students.

cageface13• 15 years ago

Here in Vietnam, where a laptop can cost several months' salary for the average person, I have yet to see a single Macbook. Asia will undoubtedly be the big growth market of the next decade and kids here are Windows kids. Perfectly functional Windows laptops are still 1/3 to 1/2 the price of the cheapest Macbook.

xuki2• 15 years ago

That's weird. Where do you live? I'm Vietnamese and last time I was home, Macbook(s) and iPad were quite popular at the airport and cafe. I'm from Da Nang.

jsz0• 15 years ago

I remember reading somewhere that the profit ratio is about 1:10 for Macs vs. PCs so in your scenario Apple made twice as much money in your cafe than the PC OEMs did. That's exactly why HP is getting out of the consumer PC business.

You might be right though that lots of people have no interest in a post-PC era but how much longer will the discount PC isle be well stocked? They may not have much of a choice. HP decided the business model is broken and not worth saving. They were relying on constant growth of the PC market to slash prices to the bone. Now what? If there's not enough demand prices will have to increase. If the business model is broken for HP isn't it probably broken for Dell and the other big PC OEMs too. They will benefit in the short term from HP bowing out but over the next 3-5 years they will face the same problem. So chances are the post-discount-PC era is going to happen with or without the users consent.

RobertHubert• 15 years ago

Lol thats the first thing that went through my head when I read the article too.

"As I write this, I'm sitting on my balcony. Within my frame of view, there are 4 coffee shops, one on each corner of the intersection - four of them are Starbucks. Welcome to the post get your own damn internet and make your own damn coffee world"

zmmmmm2• 15 years ago

Siegler exemplifies the syndrome that nearly all the high profile tech journalists have sealed themselves into an Apple-centric tech-bubble in San Francisco / bay area. There was a TWiT episode a week or two ago where every single panelist confessed to exclusively using an iPhone and Mac, some having not touched a PC in years ... yet here they were trying to sound informative on Android and Windows, the actual dominant technologies in "reality". They've basically dealt themselves out of being able to be informed and balanced on tech topics by refusing to use anything not made by Apple and now don't even understand when people accuse them of being unbalanced.

rimantas2• 15 years ago

It all depends which part of "reality" you focus on. I doubt that Windows is dominant anywhere where interesting stuff happens: be it HN, or developers' conference (save for .NET).

As for balance: this goes both ways. However it is much more difficult to find someone with no experience of Windows (I've used MS products for 15+ years before switching and still have Windows VM for testing) than someone with no experience with OS X. Somehow that does not stop the latter crowd from talking about walled gardens, form over function, „it's all marketing“, computers for non-techie people (it's UNIX, are you kidding me?), hipsters and gays, etc.

pagekalisedown• 15 years ago

I love Apple products, but the lack of a monopoly is what's keeping Apple innovating. Lets hope no other competitors decide to drop out.

hsuresh• 15 years ago

Are you serious about this? Or is this a tongue-in-cheek statement?

ifthen• 15 years ago

Hmm. Typically, it’s the opposite, no? There are plenty of companies who have no reason to innovate once their competition is gone.

robtoo• 15 years ago

Grand-parent has slightly clumsy phrasing, but you both agree: "the lack of a monopoly is what's keeping Apple innovating"

angusgr• 15 years ago

I think you're both saying the same thing, the parent just worded it a bit oddly.

maxharris• 15 years ago

I know this is a very popular notion, but I don't think it's actually true. Two arguments follow:

One often overlooked thing is that as a market becomes saturated with a product of a company with total market share, those already-sold products increasing become that company's competition. So long as the company does not resort to special laws from the government (i.e., does not seek to obtain a coercive monopoly), it must continually best its existing achivements. This is sometimes accomplished by adding features that give the company access to new markets for its products (selling a smartphone after gaining experience with portable music players).

Secondly, on an individual basis, the desire for excellence always comes from within, and results from an inward ethical focus. The goal for those true strivers is not set by or on the existence of others: it is not "let's destroy X," but rather, "let's bring this new thing into existence." In a truly innovative company, this attitude predominates because it is held by the majority of its employees.

fuzzythinker2• 15 years ago

Very nicely articulated article from MG on this. Although I may be biased since it pretty much echoes every point I believe as well. Anyone think otherwise?

recoiledsnake• 15 years ago

The opening line of extrapolating a SFO cafe to a Post-PC _world_ was pretty cheesy. This guy has no idea how things work in the world, especially Asia.

Also no mention of how Carly Fiorina got rid of the R&D teams to cut costs, leading to the current disaster. Siegler comes across as a shallow fanboy, atleast Gruber can put some better spin on things.

fuzzythinker2• 15 years ago

Don't want to turn this into flame, but I disagree with your argument. I thought it is Asia that is more PC-less than US & Europe. And it is impossible to tell if the R&D teams really stay and did a good job, would it really make webOS flourish or would it just prolong its dismise. Can webOS even win 3rd place without a true believing CEO that bet the company behind it? That is why I believe that details about how it got into this "mess" is irrelevant to the article.

dstein2• 15 years ago

So between Apple's ritzy kickass mobile PCs and the boatloads of sub-$100 chinese Androids that will flood the market soon, is there any room for a third platform? I really don't see anything stopping RIM and Microsoft from ending up at the same dead end.

hollerith2• 15 years ago

For many years now, the majority of Microsoft's revenue has come from enterprise sales, and Apple and Google has a very long way to go to dominate that market.

dstein2• 15 years ago

I meant I see Microsoft's Windows Phone platform ending up in the same place the WebOS platform is in. Certainly Microsoft may stay in business selling refreshed versions of Office and Exchange. But I don't see how that will translate into success in an all-mobile + all-cloud computing world where Microsoft has no strength.

hello_moto2• 15 years ago

... and Microsoft is about to get a bigger piece of the pie in the enterprise sales as IBM is slowly moving away from their own software offerings.

rblion5• 15 years ago

"I’ve said this before, but thought it was worth repeating: It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough. That it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing." - Steve Jobs

cageface13• 15 years ago

That guy is such a cheesy salesman. Apple has been lucky to face incompetent competitors.

rblion5• 15 years ago

You are such a cheesy hater. Steve is a hacker and a pioneer in many fields. Why do you hate him?

ellyagg• 15 years ago

Since Jobs returned to Apple, he's directed a sharp and rapid rise in the value of the company, including launches of several separate high visibility and impact product lines. But you already know this. Your claim is a lot like saying Michael Jordan got lucky to have such weak competition.

I'm a fan. When something is good, the only rational choice is to be one.

nazgulnarsil• 15 years ago

A fucking piece of consumer electronics doesnt make my heart sing under any circumstances. What a poltroon.

raganwald• 15 years ago

I went to see Star Wars in 1977, I stood in line for hours to see the first showing in Toronto. There were no DVDs, not even VCRs in those days. I can now stream the trilogy to a tablet on my lap in bed.

Yes, this fucking piece of consumer electronics makes my heart sing. That's because I'm living in a future I couldn't even imagine when I was fifteen, and lord how I tried to imagine the future.

YMMV. It's fine with me if this doesn't blow your mind.

tjmc• 15 years ago

God I wish Nokia had bought Palm and WebOS. I used to work for Elop and I like him, but my heart sank when he hitched Nokia's wagon to MS.

amartya916• 15 years ago

An aside to this thread, but Windows Phone 7 isn't as bad as you might think. I understand that you are mainly wary of the Microsoft slow moving / non-exciting culture but Windows Phone 7 is quite exciting. Microsoft Research does a lot of really fabulous HCI research and slowly but surely it is percolating through the company despite having dinosaurs like Ballmer in charge. To refer to a lame example, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that a phone UI actually used amodal completion in it's design(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amodal_perception). A mobile phone with its limited screen real estate is ideal for such a design and I believe this came out of their research lab.

Anyway, Siegler's article had the interesting reference to Amazon. If Jeff Bezos/Amazon picks up WebOS, it might just have a chance of survival.

smtf• 15 years ago

I really hope WebOS finds safe harbor. We lost Maemo or Meego or whatever it's (was) called last week and now this. The players are dropping out too early. Maybe the iPad "won" but the space will be big enough to support other players. I want more choices at this early stage, not fewer.

jp• 15 years ago

Translation: Apple VS Samsung/Motorola.

pandaassembly2• 15 years ago

My bet is, that the tablet sales will be good in terms of absolute numbers, but not as high the industry had wished.

I still do not see the too many compelling usecases when comparing a tablet with a smartphone + netbook/ultra leight weight laptop.

Hence the hugh success of the Ipad is in my opinion not much a result of its advanced features or even its slick design but rather its clever position as a must have status symbol.

jshen4• 15 years ago

I have a phone, a desktop, a MacBook air (I.e. A better netbook), and an iPad. I use the iPad far more than any of the other devices when I'm not coding.

pandaassembly2• 15 years ago

Have you collected some usage statistics ?

cageface13• 15 years ago

I'm inclined to think so too, and my own iPad has mostly been relegated to super-Kindle status. Ironically, "ultra" notebooks like the new Macbook Air destroy 90% of the appeal of a tablet for me. Three pounds and eleven inches is not a burden to port around when it's that capable.

But I know I'm also not a typical user.

pinaceae2• 15 years ago

the iPad sees record adoption among mobile field forces. big pharma is going nuts over it, placing orders of 10.000+ ipads at once. it has no moving parts, it is idiot proof. if it breaks, the rep can go into a best buy, buy a new one, log+sync, done - everything works as before, including the apps. with iOS5 and OTA upgrades this will be even easier.

the pain of fielding 10000 hp tablet pcs globally suddenly goes away. for a cheaper device, that is lighter, faster, sturdier, with great battery life. with a stable, consistent OS environment below it. no more OS images, driver fuckups, etc etc etc.

the iPad will destroy headcounts in enterprise IT just like Exchange did in the realm of secretaries.

xradionut• 15 years ago

Really? How long have you worked in enterprise IT?

We been dealing with mobile users for decades and it's a small percentage of our staff/budget that actually deals with in-field devices and issues. iPads and smart phones are nice, but the sales force and folks at remote sites find themselves more productive with a laptop that has a keyboard and the ability to run "true applications".

As for HP, it hasn't been the HP of lore in decades.

JonoW• 15 years ago

Aren't you describing a niche here? Sure tablets are going to be great with some uses in business, travelling salesman, in meetings/presentations etc. But surely the vast majority of office employees sit behind a desk, making a cheaper more powerfull desktop computer the standard choice?

buro9• 15 years ago

This is a real shame, at the high end HP produced workstations that are truly superlative. I have a Z800 sat next to me that has smaller than a Mac Pro, more silent, more powerful, and IMHO looks fabulous.

The work I do means that I can't see me getting rid of a workstation in a long while even though I recognise the that consumer desktop market has been obliterated over these past 5 or 10 years (laptops > ultra-portables > netbooks > tablets) I really hope that the more business focused part of HP remain intact and churning out incredible products.

ansy• 15 years ago

I am skeptical about Palm's IP finding its way to Amazon. Amazon seems to have invested heavily in Android not only with its own store but a whole line of tablets and phones coming out very, very soon. The talent might be good. But the patents aren't critical and there is no way Amazon wants to go down the same path that just failed for HP.

Really, Google would be the best suitor of Palm if anyone was going to buy it. Google needs those patents bad. Google can use webOS code and engineers on ChromeOS. The UI designers can go to the Android team. And Google just got a hardware division that can absorb any remaining hardware guys.

If Google can get all that for $2 billion it should write the check tomorrow. Bargain.

justincormack• 15 years ago

The only thing is that Amazon mainly seems to want to run their own software, and have their own app store. Having a different os might help. Seems unnecessary for them though.

demallien• 15 years ago

Does anyone else find the timing odd? At the start of the week, Google announce that they are getting into the hardware game with Android. At the end of the week, HP announce that they are getting out of the WebOS hardware game. But note that they say they are looking at options to maximise the value of the WebOS software. It makes me wonder if HTC / Samsung aren't hedging their bets by looking to license WebOS.

I mean, it kind of makes sense - WebOS is acclaimed as being a solid piece of software, it's certainly the most iPhone-esque of the competitors (Android, Windows Mobile 7, RIM). At a minimum, I would think HTC/Samsung would have an interest in maintaining a viable WebOS, even if it was just to be able to use it as a bludgeon if ever Google stops playing nice with Android.

patd• 15 years ago

But if HP is become an entreprise-software company, why would they want to keep updating WebOS as a end-user software for smartphones and tablets ?

Licensing only makes sense if HP puts his weight behind WebOS as a good alternative to iOS and Android.

baggachipz• 15 years ago

"The Post-PC device is about the combination of hardware and software all built and integrated by one company. Google doesn’t get that."

Except that they create partnerships to put out a Google-branded phone, and just bought the leading Android device manufacturer in order to more tightly couple the experience, so that's exactly what the "get"... (Sees post author) Oh, nevermind. Look, I like Apple products as much as the next guy, but at what point will this MG clown be happy? I hope Apple pays him a decent salary.

aufreak3• 15 years ago

Biased techcrunch reporting apart, I felt a bit saddened by the announcement because I actually thought HP had a chance at being "one of the three" in the devices space. I liked their webos demos and their devices seemed pleasing to use. Oh well.

HP To Apple: You Win.

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