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HP said to dump Microsoft ARM tablets over Surface
- freshrap6 14y agoToo bad they didn't keep webOS around...
- fredleblanc 14y agoIt's not too late to bring it back.
- andyjohnson0 14y agoIts gone. HP lost its credibility with app developers - they've moved on and they're not coming back.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- j_col 14y agoEnyo is still under active development, so no, they didn't snag the entire team despite what was inaccurately reported in all of the tech blogs at the time.
- yardie 14y agoThey don't have any hardware to run it on. The Touchpads are shutdown, finished, gone. The tools have been dismantled and the workers sent elsewhere. Enyo is little more than a project looking for a purpose at this point.
- j_col 14y ago> They don't have any hardware to run it on. Hmmm, you do realise that Enyo is cross-platform right?
- yardie 14y agoThey could but they would have a lot of developers sniffing around the edges trying to figure out if HP was really serious this time. Last time I went to their developer conference they said they were really serious, and then 3 months later dumped the entire thing. Unlike Google, they actually had a decent tablet OS. They had ceded the smartphone market to Apple and Google. But at the time the only real tablets were coming from Apple. Some idiot bean count of a CEO saw the competition (iOS and Honeycomb) and got scared.
- taligent 14y agoI am surprised people don't talk more about how badly HP messed up WebOS. If they had put their weight behind it and licensed it could easily have given Android a run for its money and at the very least knocked RIM squarely out of the market.
- bokchoi 14y agoHere is an recent and excellent article on the sordid story of Palm and WebOS: http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/5/3062611/palm-webos-hp-inside-story-pre-postmortem http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/5/3062611/palm-webos-hp-insid...
- rsanchez1 14y agoThey didn't completely kill it off. I suspect they maintained Open webOS as plan B, just in case they needed it.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- Toshio 14y agoNobody in Redmond seems to think of a plan B in case the surface is a flop in the market.
- kyberias 14y agoWhat makes you say that? I mean, what kind of signals would you expect to hear from Redmond in case they did have a plan B? Obviously they do and just as obviously plan B's are almost never public.
- taligent 14y agoIf we've learnt one lesson from Microsoft it's that they can be really patient. Look at the XBox. Started off poorly but it looks like they will dominate the next generation of consoles given how badly Sony has been faltering recently. So for all we know this could be a full blown shift into replicating Apple's integrated approach.
- powerslave12r 14y agoI hope they pick Linux based distributions or develop their own. That would be the start of something great.
- mtgx 14y agoApparently Ubuntu is catching on fast in India, and Dell is selling Ubuntu laptops at 850 retail stores in India now, so that might not be such a bad plan for HP either. http://news.efytimes.com/e1/86247/Ubuntu-Adoption-Grew--Per-Cent-In-India-Last-Year http://news.efytimes.com/e1/86247/Ubuntu-Adoption-Grew--Per-... With publishing houses like EA and Valve joining Ubuntu, and changing the perception that "Linux/Ubuntu is not for mainstream users", and the potential rejection of Windows 8 by the market, this could get interesting fast.
- andyjohnson0 14y agoSo 2012 could be The Year of Linux on the Desktop?
- jordibunster 14y agoI know you're joking (and I doubt Linux on the desktop will ever be a thing) but it would be hilarious if Microsoft were the one to propel the old PC assemblers into making a Linux push.
- mdda 14y agoGoogle is registering 1,000,000 Linux machines a day. Small desktops, granted. But (IMHO) the Year of the Desktop was really about the year of Consumer Linux, which snuck up on everyone upwards, rather than flowing down in machine size.
- jeswin 14y agoPercentages without actual figures (as in the referenced link) are disingenuous. Apart from developers working on Linux, the number of times I have seen Ubuntu on a PC in India: Zero.
- mattmaroon 14y agoI was going to post that this seems like mere sensationalism, then I noticed the blog's URL.
- robert_nsu 14y agoI stopped reading when I got to the part about Windows RT become WART. This guy has an axe to grind and he just wasted thrity seconds of my life that I will never get back.
- adjwilli 14y agoMicrosoft management may have destroyed their partnerships, but they're certainly not imcompetent. The Surface is the exact thing Microsoft needs to stay relevant for consumers. And if Microsoft can start selling their own hardware, in the end they'll be better and more profitable for it. What does SemiArrucate thing Microsoft should do? Stay the same course that has seen them losing marketshare for a decade?
- josefresco 14y agoThey've been losing market share for over a decade? I would love to see some real numbers on that.
- jwarzech 14y agoI think the more accurate statement would be that they have lost market share in specific markets and have failed to adopt share in others.
- mikeash 14y agoA decade ago, they had essentially 100% of the market. There's nowhere to go from that but down.
- mbreese 14y agoIt's probably more accurate to say they've lost mindshare. The amount of PC marketshare they've lost to Apple is still pretty small. But the biggest problem for Microsoft is that the market is shifting. Between smartphones and tablets, people just don't need PCs as much. So Microsoft is desperately trying to be a factor in those markets. Shrinking the PC down to the size of the Surface isn't a bad idea, but it will make OEMs very uncomfortable. They are feeling the same market pressure to get small and mobile.
- adjwilli 14y agoMindshare is more what I meant than marketshare. If you look at Wikipedia's statistics, Microsoft represents about 75% of visitors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system... I imagine that in 2002, their share would have been hovering around 95%.
- smackfu 14y agoNote that "dump" here means "won't make Windows ARM tablets". I know everyone was waiting breathlessly for one of those from HP.
- Splines 14y agoThe mobile device org from top to bottom must still be smarting from the touchpad.
- pmelendez 14y agoHonestly, I haven't been impressed by any HP product in a while and being a big fan of Compaq / HP and an owner of a mobile workstation, it's a bit frustrating. I hope this will be a wake up call for them although it seems more like they want to turn Google in the new Microsoft. I am not terribly eager to see that happening...
- rjv 14y agoAgreed. As a consumer I say good riddance to HP's products. What Vizio is doing with their PC lineup is far more interesting and I think they'll have a bright future partnering with Microsoft and their Signature series.
- pmelendez 14y agoThank you.. I didn't hear about Vizio before... indeed they look pretty nice :)
- WrkInProgress 14y agoHow is Surface any different than Google`s Nexus line .....
- TwistedWeasel 14y agoMicrosoft charges OEM's a significant amount of money to use Windows on their hardware, Google gives Android away for free. So, the Surface is able to undercut the OEM's on price significantly.
- WrkInProgress 14y agoI was under the impression that Google does have licensing agreements with OEMs, for the use of Google apps like GMail, Maps, Navigation, Play Store, etc. I'm sure it's not $85 per device for the license but the point still remains.
- jusben1369 14y agoAlthough in all fairness without announcing any pricing it's not clear they're going to do that.
- cooldeal 14y agoOk, so where are the big Android OEM's 7" $199 tablets? Google, like Amazon is able to sell their tablet at that price at a small loss or no profit because of owning Google Play and selling content through it and the 30% cut of app revenue(Google does no curating of their apps so their costs are less than Apple's). Not to mention early access to the OS, while all other tablets in the market are using the older version ICS. How can HTC match that? They couldn't. So they stopped making Android tablets, same with LG.
- randomfool 14y agoAndroid = $0, W8 = $85. With Google they're on more equal footing. Though HP did have webOS...
- taligent 14y ago
- asadotzler 14y agoIf HP really abandons Windows, HP is doomed. Printers aren't enough for an organization that size.
- cdr 14y agoThe editorial is specifically about HP abandoning Windows RT - linkbaitish headline.
- jusben1369 14y agoAgree. Horrible headline.
- yread 14y agofixed
- cooldeal 14y agoThe article itself seems to be a troll by the author. He seems to have a chip on his shoulder for Microsoft. An example of his childishness: http://semiaccurate.com/2012/04/17/windows-on-arm-rt-wart/ http://semiaccurate.com/2012/04/17/windows-on-arm-rt-wart/ Who am I kidding, he's not childish, he knows how to drive page hits. After all, he left 'The Inquirer' to found SemiAccurate(a well fitting title).
- georgekv 14y agoThey have already mentioned they're looking to move their PC division, and transition towards a services model, a la IBM. I'm not saying this will all pan out, but that's what has come out.
- rfugger 14y agoI think that was the last CEO, who no longer works there.
- MichaelGG 14y agoMicrosoft is absolutely making the right move here. For years they've stayed out of hardware, and let their OEMs mess it up. They wanted to "partner" to deliver a good end user experience, and that's never worked out. Microsoft has done a similar in the hosted services space with Office365. Did that burn a lot of relationships? Oh most certainly - people are annoyed they can't resell Exchange or O365 and make any serious money. But so what? Microsoft is making their products available in a great way, and serving their customers better. If Microsoft had taken this approach a decade ago, perhaps Apple would not have grown to twice MS's size simply by caring about the end-to-end user experience.
- prezjordan 14y agoJust out of curiosity, how is Apple twice Microsoft's size? I mean, Microsoft products are still used all over business, right? How did it happen?
- mcphilip 14y agoProbably referring to Apple's market cap being twice that of Microsoft: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=apple+market+cap%2C+microsoft+market+cap http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=apple+market+cap%2C+mic...
- randallsquared 14y agoWell, in terms of total revenue, they appear to be more than twice as large: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2012/apr12/04-19fy12Q3earningsPR.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2012/apr12/04-19fy... http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2012/04/24Apple-Reports-Second-Quarter-Results.html http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2012/04/24Apple-Reports-Seco... Microsoft's third quarter 2012 and Apple's second quarter 2012 seem to be the same timespan, ending on the same day, and in that period Microsoft reported $17.41B, while Apple reported $39.2B.
- runako 14y agoIt's also worth noting that Apple's revenues are growing ~ around 5x faster than Microsoft's: http://caps.fool.com/Ticker/MSFT/EarningsGrowthRates.aspx http://caps.fool.com/Ticker/MSFT/EarningsGrowthRates.aspx http://caps.fool.com/Ticker/AAPL/EarningsGrowthRates.aspx http://caps.fool.com/Ticker/AAPL/EarningsGrowthRates.aspx
- drivingmenuts 14y agoThis might actually help Microsoft become more like Apple, if they can shed some of the OEMs. MS may own the market in several areas, but Apple has the buzz and the flexibility to do pretty much whatever they think they need to. It's a pity that these OEMs aren't talking about Linux as a replacement - accelerating the adoption of Linux would help pretty much everyone (including, eventually, Microsoft by forcing them to be more innovative).
- adjwilli 14y agoAndroid is a Linux. It's like Portland, the dream of the 90's.
- ConstantineXVI 14y agoIt's the Linux kernel, but above that it's totally incompatible with the typical GNU/Linux stack. Linux in Android is just a convenient layer between the hardware and Dalvik.
- sageikosa 14y agoHP products only become popular anymore once they stop making them and sell that at clearance.
- johnohara 14y agoIn all fairness to MS, HP's waffling over whether they were selling their desktop/laptop/othertop business or not and Dell's acquisition of Perot Systems to become a more services oriented company are flags worth noting. MS isn't bleeding edge, but they seem to be reading the leaves pretty well.
- jusben1369 14y agoHP Exec: "That's IT! We need to go it on our own with our tablet strategy. Dang, maybe we should acquire a really good mobile OS?"
- excuse-me 14y agoNo need - they found a really good deal on tablets at BestBuy, they just have to go and buy them at $99 and resell them for $499
- jusben1369 14y agoHP Exec: "That's IT! We need to go it on our own with our tablet strategy. Dang, maybe we should acquire a really good mobile OS?"
- jccodez 14y agoMicrosoft is creating a baseline for vendors. HP will be on board. This is fud.
- brudgers 14y agoOther than the certification requirements for Windows on ARM, everything else is pretty much speculation (e.g. license prices and HP abandoning Windows) or casting of the status quo as a sudden shift of the landscape (e.g. tablets from anyone other than Apple run Android, today). The fact that there is an existing commitment to Android tablets by all the consumer electronics companies is probably the reason Microsoft is considering making it's own hardware (not that HP was really seemed all that gung-ho on partnering with Microsoft over the long term once they bought Palm to acquire Web-OS). Windows on ARM is not Windows Phone or the Windows OS in so far as economies of scale. The tablet market is always going to be really small compared to the size of the phone and PC markets due to the "third device" nature of tablets and their orientation toward media consumption rather than productivity. HP isn't selling a lot of tablets today - nobody is, other than Apple and only because they don't have to share their slice of the pie with anyone else (i.e. the Android slice of the market is shared among lots of competitors).
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- randomfool 14y agoThis shouldn't be much of a surprise at all (if confirmed): - Microsoft's rumored pricing strategy leaves little room for profit for the HW manufacturers. - Before the Surface announcement Microsoft was seeing very little traction with ARM device manufacturers. ARM devices have been noticeably quiet during all of the tradeshows. I'm guessing is that Microsoft prepared the Surface as a backup plan if they weren't satisfied their HW partners. This turned into a reality and Microsoft released the Surface knowing full well that they'd lose partners. I wouldn't be surprised if the high rumored cost of Windows 8 is because Microsoft calculated it's profit margin (and risk) if it went the Surface route, then set the price based on that. If it's a zero-sum market (tablet sale is either Surface or Brand X Windows RT machine) then this works out (and Microsoft hubris does believe this is a zero-sum game).
- stevejabs 14y agoLike HP is really in a position here to call shots? Clearly they are reallllly successful with the tablet industry.
- pragmatic 14y agoI see someone changed the title? The article is titled "HP said to dump Microsoft over Surface" which was the original title posted here. Now the link title has been changed to "HP said to dump Microsoft ARM tablets over Surface." So it was edited to try to make this look like a less inflammatory title? (As someone pointed out, who is breathlessly waiting for HP ARM tablets with Windows 8?) Interesting.
- huggyface 14y agoThe editors (? is that the right title?) of HN frequently change headlines to match the linked article, presumably to avoid the Reddit-like draw of linkbait titles.
- yread 14y agoI (the OP) edited it because the article is not about HP dumping MS but about dumping MS ARM tablets. People were complaining about link-baity headline now people are complaining about different headline. Oh well
- notatoad 14y agowell, that wasn't a biased article at all.