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I was with you right up to the point where you backed Apotheker. I'm not convinced that the iPad or Kindle Fire markets (I also view them as somewhat separate)

I was with you right up to the point where you backed Apotheker. I'm not convinced that the iPad or Kindle Fire markets (I also view them as somewhat separate) have to be one-horse races.

raganwald 15y ago
My “backing” was rather faint praise, given that it was served with the weasel phrases “Beginning to think” and “May have been.” I definitley agree that every market has room for a strong number one and a scrappy number two. There are good arguments to be made that someone is going to carve out a living as the scrappy number two tablet manufacturer. Could it have been HP thanks to WebOS? RIM thanks to their co-called Enterprise strength? Samsung thanks to their manufacturing prowess? (see excellent comments elsewhere in this discussion...) Maybe. Tough business, tough call. I’d like to think that the scrappy number two able to sell around Apple’s price point will have something innovative to offer. It might be none of these companies, it might be a hardware startup with some special sauce, or an entirely new approach to software. But then again, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Maybe HP should have doubled down on WebOS.
- ScottBurson 15y ago
  It's funny to me how people are reading this. I was going to challenge your quote from the opposite direction (i.e., as being too weakly stated): I think Amazon's entry into the tablet market proves that HP's exit from it was very much the right call. I thought so before, and it's inescapable now. HP would only have been throwing good money after bad to continue. I like WebOS (I used a Pre for a while) and sure, it would be great if HP could somehow be a significant player in the tablet market. I just don't see how it can happen. HP was late to the party and there's massive competition. The only justification I could see for continuing to sell the TouchPad is if customers (primarily business customers) came to feel that HP's offerings were incomplete without it, and that drove them to other suppliers for desktops and laptops. I suppose it's possible things could get to that state, but I don't see it happening soon. Trendiness aside, I don't see many problems that businesses have that a tablet solves better than a netbook ... as witnessed by the iPads I see people carrying with cases and external keyboards. Edit: clarification.

I was with you right up to the point where you backed Apotheker. I'm not convinced that the iPad or Kindle Fire markets (I also view them as somewhat separate) have to be one-horse races.

raganwald 15y ago

My “backing” was rather faint praise, given that it was served with the weasel phrases “Beginning to think” and “May have been.” I definitley agree that every market has room for a strong number one and a scrappy number two. There are good arguments to be made that someone is going to carve out a living as the scrappy number two tablet manufacturer. Could it have been HP thanks to WebOS? RIM thanks to their co-called Enterprise strength? Samsung thanks to their manufacturing prowess? (see excellent comments elsewhere in this discussion...) Maybe. Tough business, tough call. I’d like to think that the scrappy number two able to sell around Apple’s price point will have something innovative to offer. It might be none of these companies, it might be a hardware startup with some special sauce, or an entirely new approach to software. But then again, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Maybe HP should have doubled down on WebOS.

ScottBurson 15y ago
It's funny to me how people are reading this. I was going to challenge your quote from the opposite direction (i.e., as being too weakly stated): I think Amazon's entry into the tablet market proves that HP's exit from it was very much the right call. I thought so before, and it's inescapable now. HP would only have been throwing good money after bad to continue. I like WebOS (I used a Pre for a while) and sure, it would be great if HP could somehow be a significant player in the tablet market. I just don't see how it can happen. HP was late to the party and there's massive competition. The only justification I could see for continuing to sell the TouchPad is if customers (primarily business customers) came to feel that HP's offerings were incomplete without it, and that drove them to other suppliers for desktops and laptops. I suppose it's possible things could get to that state, but I don't see it happening soon. Trendiness aside, I don't see many problems that businesses have that a tablet solves better than a netbook ... as witnessed by the iPads I see people carrying with cases and external keyboards. Edit: clarification.