4 ms·

This is a terrible article. Their main error was buying palm. That was a huge gamble that was very unlikely to pay off in this market. You can't beat a 'free

by buddylw 15y ago

This is a terrible article. Their main error was buying palm. That was a huge gamble that was very unlikely to pay off in this market. You can't beat a 'free' OS on cost and you don't have the magic marketing and design to make a high-end product more desirable than Apple. There was effectively 0 chance web OS would be a "hit," and a low chance that it would even sell at all. The only other valid point in the article is that they haven't handled their PR well. I guess I am alone here, but I was very impressed that HP was willing to cut it's losses on palm/web OS so quickly. Also, for better or worse, a publicly traded company needs to grow. If you look at HP's financial report...there is definitely room for growth in enterprise software. I think buying Autonomy (a profitable company) is a good direction for them to go (though I do admit they paid a very high price).

jonknee 15y ago
The huge gamble was the 10x larger purchase of a software company unrelated to HPs business...
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- sceptre 15y ago
  And a company that was worth 2 billion dollars with a decreasing revenue stream. As an ex employee of autonomy i can definitely say that HP made a very very big mistake.
  - buddylw 15y ago
    2 billion? I think you are forgetting about their recent acquisition of Iron Mountain Digital. I would say the companies were worth 4-6 B. They still paid too much, but there is a big difference between paying 400% over value and paying 60% over value.
    - jonknee 15y ago
      ... Iron Mountain Digital was bought three months ago for $380M. If they were worth $2B before, they haven't doubled or tripled their worth because they spent $380M of their cash reserves.
darklajid 15y ago
'Cut it's losses on palm/WebOS': They didn't even try. Seriously.. Was it a bad decision to acquire Palm? Maybe. The way it was executed made it a waste of money. The _potential_ was good, the system itself is awesome. It lacked decent devices (and a global supply chain, opposed to 'You can only buy a Palm Pre 2 in France'), mere hardware. They bought it, did a half-assed job to come up with a new line of hardware (still nothing to boast about on this front) and acted surprised when the market didn't jump to buy everything with HP and WebOS logos. The original Palm acquisition _only_ made sense if you understand that you'll need 2-3 iterations to make that business successful. Your '0 chance WebOS would be a "hit"' line seems off to me. It's more beautiful than Android (and iOS to me, but YYMV). It's far closer to your garden variety Linux machine than Android (which might appeal to geeks only, granted). The development model for the platform is great and could bring in lots of people that so far haven't started mobile development at all. Synergy/Just Type were executed well for the most parts. WebOS had a very decent chance, but like any other piece of technology you need to support it first, do a couple of iterations based on market feedback.
zmmmmm 15y ago
Even if you argue the decision to abandon WebOS devices was sound the execution of it was horrendous. They utterly destroyed whatever value was left in the WebOS. To me, it can't be an accident. This is Leo Apotheker deliberately making sure that the brand is unsalvagable, thus ensuring he can act with freedom going forward to transform the company how he wants - not in shareholder's interest, but in his own interest.

by buddylw 15y ago

jonknee 15y ago

The huge gamble was the 10x larger purchase of a software company unrelated to HPs business...

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
sceptre 15y ago
And a company that was worth 2 billion dollars with a decreasing revenue stream. As an ex employee of autonomy i can definitely say that HP made a very very big mistake.
- buddylw 15y ago
  2 billion? I think you are forgetting about their recent acquisition of Iron Mountain Digital. I would say the companies were worth 4-6 B. They still paid too much, but there is a big difference between paying 400% over value and paying 60% over value.
  - jonknee 15y ago
    ... Iron Mountain Digital was bought three months ago for $380M. If they were worth $2B before, they haven't doubled or tripled their worth because they spent $380M of their cash reserves.

darklajid 15y ago

'Cut it's losses on palm/WebOS': They didn't even try. Seriously.. Was it a bad decision to acquire Palm? Maybe. The way it was executed made it a waste of money. The _potential_ was good, the system itself is awesome. It lacked decent devices (and a global supply chain, opposed to 'You can only buy a Palm Pre 2 in France'), mere hardware. They bought it, did a half-assed job to come up with a new line of hardware (still nothing to boast about on this front) and acted surprised when the market didn't jump to buy everything with HP and WebOS logos. The original Palm acquisition _only_ made sense if you understand that you'll need 2-3 iterations to make that business successful. Your '0 chance WebOS would be a "hit"' line seems off to me. It's more beautiful than Android (and iOS to me, but YYMV). It's far closer to your garden variety Linux machine than Android (which might appeal to geeks only, granted). The development model for the platform is great and could bring in lots of people that so far haven't started mobile development at all. Synergy/Just Type were executed well for the most parts. WebOS had a very decent chance, but like any other piece of technology you need to support it first, do a couple of iterations based on market feedback.

zmmmmm 15y ago

Even if you argue the decision to abandon WebOS devices was sound the execution of it was horrendous. They utterly destroyed whatever value was left in the WebOS. To me, it can't be an accident. This is Leo Apotheker deliberately making sure that the brand is unsalvagable, thus ensuring he can act with freedom going forward to transform the company how he wants - not in shareholder's interest, but in his own interest.