Eerongal he/him Posted August 19, 2011 Report Share Posted August 19, 2011 So apparently HP plans on phasing out all its consumer operations. With fierce competition from Apple Inc.'s iPhone and smartphones running Google Inc.'s Android software, HP's handsets running the webOS software developed by Palm have been just a blip on most consumers' radar screens. A tablet called the TouchPad, released in July and also running webOS, has also sold poorly.The market seemed too tough for HP to forge ahead: The technology conglomerate said Thursday that it is shuttering its mobile device business, which includes the webOS-running smartphones and TouchPad.The announcement came as HP said it also plans to sell or spin off its PC division. Together, the moves would take HP out of the consumer market, though it will continue to sell servers and other equipment to business customers. That's pretty crazy if you ask me. Anyone else got comments or thoughts about it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silus - Shard of Flame he/him Posted August 21, 2011 Report Share Posted August 21, 2011 I find that very surprising. Our Dell broke down a while ago and we replaced it with an HP, and it works really great. It's got a terabyte of space on it, which my mom wanted to get my grandpa to not brag so much about the terabyte he has on his laptop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaos he/him Posted August 21, 2011 Report Share Posted August 21, 2011 (edited) I find that very surprising. Our Dell broke down a while ago and we replaced it with an HP, and it works really great. It's got a terabyte of space on it, which my mom wanted to get my grandpa to not brag so much about the terabyte he has on his laptop. I can't say I'm very surprised. The tablet marketplace is vicious. I read a survey that said for consumers who planned to buy a tablet, 94%'s top choice was the iPad. Ouch. Thing is, the Touchpad wasn't a sexy device, and next to an iPad or a Galaxy Tab 10.1--both of which are undeniably sexy devices--software isn't going to make as big of an impression as simply holding a device and saying "Wow, this is awesome." I didn't particularly like the feel of the Touchpad. It's pretty heavy. Speaking of software, I was under the impression that there were not too many Touchpad optimized apps, either. I saw what happened when you looked at a normal webOS app on the Touchpad and it didn't even scale up. That's disappointing. Most of my Android apps look fairly fine in tablet mode, despite the fact that it is just expanding the phone app to fit a big screen (Trillian's app is quite usable on the tablet, for one). The Touchpad just didn't have a good launch. I'm not surprised that they would want to move out of that market with making hardware. However, the mention that HP is selling their PC hardware division is baffling. Weren't they one of the biggest notebook sellers last year? I don't understand why they would do that. Edited August 21, 2011 by Chaos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eerongal he/him Posted August 21, 2011 Author Report Share Posted August 21, 2011 yeah, i'm honestly not surprised about the tablet/mobile phone part going down. Back in the day, i was a big palm guy (before all these here i-devices and androids) because for its time palmOS of was really advanced. However, webOS (which is what HP bought them out for) was a huge let down. It had some neat ideas (true multitasking, the card system, synergy, etc.) but the OS itself felt like it was only half finished and really buggy. This stuttered it with slow adoption which lead to slow developer acceptance. This in turn led to a low app count that barely went anywhere. They also had trouble coming up with a "killer device" for webOS. What i mean by that is all of the hardware they released it on was "meh" when it came out. But yeah, i'm honestly way more surprised about the "no more consumer PCs" thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zayde he/him Posted August 22, 2011 Report Share Posted August 22, 2011 Am I the only one who read the title of this thread and though HP meant Harry Potter? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Link Von Kelsier Harvey he/him Posted August 22, 2011 Report Share Posted August 22, 2011 I was like, "What's this about Hit Points?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaos he/him Posted August 22, 2011 Report Share Posted August 22, 2011 I was like, "What's this about Hit Points?" HEWLETT-PACKARD used True Multitasking! APPLE took 5 damage. It's not very effective... APPLE used Market Share! HEWLETT-PACKARD took 341 damage. It's super effective! HEWLETT-PACKARD fainted! 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrienne she/her Posted August 22, 2011 Report Share Posted August 22, 2011 What is surprising is that they are pulling out of all PC sales. If you have a relationship with either HP or Dell for your desktop clients that is what you normally use for your servers. The prices are relatively the same. Desktops normally are replaces more frequently than clients. There's normally only Dell or HP to choose between. I'm sure Dell will soak this up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SOM1else he/him Posted August 22, 2011 Report Share Posted August 22, 2011 Am I the only one who read the title of this thread and though HP meant Harry Potter? No I thought it meant Harry Potter also Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eerongal he/him Posted August 22, 2011 Author Report Share Posted August 22, 2011 There, added clarification Also: I'm not entirely sure what "Harry potter moving out of the consumer space" would actually mean....Any new HP books would only be sold to big businesses or something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SOM1else he/him Posted August 22, 2011 Report Share Posted August 22, 2011 There, added clarification Also: I'm not entirely sure what "Harry potter moving out of the consumer space" would actually mean....Any new HP books would only be sold to big businesses or something? That's why the tile was confusing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darniil he/him Posted August 23, 2011 Report Share Posted August 23, 2011 I remember reading something on slashdot, I think, about the fire sale on TouchPads, how they were selling like hotcakes. I think the story was along the lines of "HP would be doing better if they sold their stuff at more reasonable prices", but I don't remember the whole thing, nor can I find it any more. :-/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe ST he/him Posted August 23, 2011 Report Share Posted August 23, 2011 I remember reading something on slashdot, I think, about the fire sale on TouchPads, how they were selling like hotcakes. I think the story was along the lines of "HP would be doing better if they sold their stuff at more reasonable prices", but I don't remember the whole thing, nor can I find it any more. :-/ Arrington of TechCrunch posted that he thought HP should up the price a little, so they werent making such a huge loss, and then people (developers) would flock to it, since it's cheaper than Apple, and most other tablets are trying to be Apple like... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darniil he/him Posted August 23, 2011 Report Share Posted August 23, 2011 Ah, that must have been it. I just skimmed the article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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