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In principle I agree, however, much has been made of Apple's buying power when it comes to key components (displays, solid state storage, etc). Apple may well
by marklabedz 15y ago
In principle I agree, however, much has been made of Apple's buying power when it comes to key components (displays, solid state storage, etc). Apple may well have the lowest actual component cost.
- desigooner 15y agoI understand the fact about Apple's buying power. But when someone is trying to compete with an established product, you gotta offer something more at some price less to get people to even look at it! It's going to be interesting to see how the HP Touchpad & Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 do in the next few months. However, the real competition will start when Amazon jumps into the market with their rumored Kal-El tablets later this year.
- SoftwareMaven 15y agoThe dollars don't matter so much. eBay matters is that you are seen providing better value (which may indue cost). Unfortunately, with the WWDC announcements, it really doesn't look like HP has a better value. They need something more to compete if they don't want it to be a race to the bottom with Chinese, Taiwanese, and South Korean vendors.
- stcredzero 15y agoUnfortunately, with the WWDC announcements, it really doesn't look like HP has a better value. For as long as the MS/Windows ecosystem is a going concern, a sufficiently well executed non-Apple tablet will have a market in those who are anti-Apple.
- wisty 15y agoNope, it's not possible to offer more for less. Apple is a "good" monopoly, that passes their saving onto customers. The only way to beat them is to attack from below. Make a tablet that is only good for browsing the web. Maybe add a few cheap features like a camera and GPS, but skimp on expensive features like storage. If you really want to be cool, add some kind of console controls, so teenagers can play games. Maybe even add some sort of social element - allow them to connect to each other through USB, and play arcade games. Or attack some other niche that Apple don't own. You could add a bunch of graphics calculator functions, and target students. Just be careful you don't do anything that a $3 App won't do. Price it at half the price of an iPad, and hope you gain a toehold.
- jmelloy 15y agoI think you're describing the Nook Color and/or Nook.
- tsieling 15y ago>When trying to compete with an established product you gotta offering something more at some price less... Like the iPhone and it's $600 starting price?
- WiseWeasel 15y agoApple created the market for touch-friendly pocket computers. There were no established products in that market.
- dman 15y agoYes the Newton was a great product.
- WiseWeasel 15y agoNewton was stylus-driven.
- dman 15y agoI didnt get the memo which stipulated that you need to use fingers for it to be classified as touch based.
- podperson 15y agoMaybe mouse-driven computers should be considered touch-based too?
- dman 15y agoI believe an interface is touch based if you use an object to touch the screen to interact with the interface. Mice do not have this property. Given the downvotes I imagine people at HN disagree with this notion, but here are some links that suggest that there is a part of the world which considers stylus based devices as touch based. [1] http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/TouchSystems/TouchScreen/Information/Media/PressReleases/?PC_7_RJH9U5230GE3E02LECFTDQG0U7_assetId=1273678744381 http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/TouchSystems/Tou... [2] http://www.pdapanache.com/stylusfaq.asp http://www.pdapanache.com/stylusfaq.asp [3] http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=354774&dl=ACM&coll=DL&CFID=28130026&CFTOKEN=29744814 http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=354774&dl=ACM&...
- mgkimsal 15y agoCould HP not just sell below cost for a while to grab some market share? Instead of $100 million in marketing, drop the price by $100 and sell a million devices. It's a more direct benefit.
- msbarnett 15y agoIt's not as easy as you'd think to sell a $399 tablet with no marketing budget. See: The surprise in this thread being expressed that Asus' tablet has been available for sale for months.
- skystorm 15y agoHowever, Asus' tablet is either out of stock or sells out very quickly, so one could argue that there's not much need for marketing from that standpoint.
- mgkimsal 15y agoIt's not necessarily all or nothing. Certainly they've already spent quite a lot - trade shows, etc - and have the geek faithful aware of the tablet already. It'd be much easier for me to evangelize this at a lower price point. A $299 price point would rock. "Correct, it doesn't do as much as an iPad, but it's also not as expensive." This notion that "the market says $499 price points are what tablets should be priced at" is stupid. $499 is what iPads will sell at - no one else has yet demonstrated that a $499 is viable for any other tablet than the iPad. I will say it's foolish to keep trying this late in the game. If a company as big as HP isn't willing to do what it takes to get these in to peoples' hands (which may include selling below cost), there's little hope this will be a viable competitor.
- stcredzero 15y agoIt's not as easy as you'd think to sell a $399 tablet with no marketing budget. Is this in part due to the plethora of crappy Android tablets that came out in the last year?