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There are companies that do well by making brilliant things, and there are companies that do well by making commodities cheaply. It's nice when a commodity com
by shimon 17y ago
There are companies that do well by making brilliant things, and there are companies that do well by making commodities cheaply. It's nice when a commodity company, like Acer, makes something that seems brilliant, like a good netbook. And it's nice when a company holds a streak of brilliance for many years, like Apple has.
What makes the HP example sad is that it's a company that has recently been running on the vapors of it brilliant ideas, and is now stuck competing in commoditized markets, where you can really only compete on price. That's not to say HP couldn't survive, or even become more profitable; but for hackers who cherish the creation of brilliant things, it is a painful thing to witness.
On the other hand, this is progress. We have Microsoft's early PC OS monolopy to thank for the wonderful range of cheap, standardized PC hardware that makes linux boxes easy and macs/ipods/iphones mass-marketable.
- keltex 17y agoThe thing about HP, is they have always made commodity crappy consumer systems as long as I can remember. Compaq, which they devoured, was the quality system maker.
- mosburger 17y agoI suspect you're a bit younger than the people who remember HP's greatness, especially their scientific instruments and engineering tools. They also used to be good at making big iron servers (I'm thinking pre HP-UX). Also, one of the companies HP devoured was Digital, who ruled the world with their VAX systems. The hardware giants used to be the likes of IBM, Sun, Digital, HP, Data General, Wang, Honeywell, and a few others I'm forgetting. The only ones left now are IBM (a services company) and HP (a commodity consumer hardware company). I'm not counting Sun because I expect the Oracle deal to go through.
- oconnor0 17y agoAnd HP's laserjet printers. Those things were amazing.