The HP TouchPad, which the company killed last week due to few sales and retailer rejections, might live again if the firm spins-off its PC manufacturing business, an executive in China said Tuesday.
“Tablet computing is a segment of the market that’s relevant, absolutely,” HP Personal Systems Group chief Todd Bradley told Reuters in China. Although he was in Beijing, it wasn’t to sell WebOS to the Chinese, the HP executive insisted. However, “a number” of companies have expressed interest in using the OS, he told the news agency. Samsung could be one of those eyeing the software. As we’ve reported, the handset and tablet maker is looking at WebOS to bolster its position against Apple.
HP is also walking back speculation that it might do an IBM, which sold off its personal computing business to Lenovo. “The numbers don’t support that that strategy works,” Bradley said, pointing to Acer’s first quarterly loss. Acer acquired Gateway in 2007.
Instead, the executive plans to lead a spin-off of HP’s personal computing division, a move that would “bring the ‘best value’ to HP shareholders,” according to Reuters. Any decision on HP’s next move could be known in December when the company’s board next meets.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
33 responses to “HP Exec Is Having Second-Thought About Killing the TouchPad”
If you’re considering continuing with a platform, don’t announce its death and then hold a ridiculous firesale of the remaining unsold products, even if you realise in hindsight that the hardware is too underpowered for the OS / the OS isn’t mature enough.
Just say how ‘happy’ you are with it, invest it in, and say how the future plans are really exciting. And then get Launch v2.0 right.
i actually emailed the execs at hp last week outlining my thoughts, basically i explained this business model; (and amazon is using this model) take the loss on the sale, 99 bucks out the door, the key to any platform being a success is getting it into peoples hands.once they do have it in there hands they are free to buy apps, generate revenue that hp gets a chunk of. so basically take the loss on hardware, make up the cost in revenue through app store, as well as developers
Yup… Sell at a loss and make up for it in volume. Brilliant.
As an AAPL stockholder, I completely support that plan for HP.
Indeed. Â It’s a bit late for second thoughts, and this exec has to know that the entire top management is against him. Â The new owners of HP want nothing to do with the computer business at all and most of the upper execs that still do have already left or been let go. Â
Apple’s app business is a very small fraction of their iPad device business. Â HP is unlikely to do any better selling apps. Â Amazon barely makes a loss on their Kindles, the Touchpad costs over $300 to make. Â I just don’t see a sustainable tablet business for HP.
HP should have given the Touchpad more time, and come down with the price when it came out. While it is true that WebOS does have some problems, so does other operating systems, including iOS.
The #1 thing that the Touchpad had when it went out the door was the number of apps. Â Nobody is going to pay $400.00 + for something with limited apps.
With that said, I think HP should reevaluate itself and get rid of the exec that killed something after not even a month, period. Â
My dog needs a job and just told me he could run this mess better.
One of my buddys has one. Â Once you turn off all of the logging that HP had on by default, WebOS becomes quite snappy.
Sell it as a wide-open portal to whatever OS, software, snap-in peripherals and ports you can imagine for it. An Erector Set tablet if you will.Â
Let the users guide the hardware and applications for it. Then introduce various modules for it as it matures.Â
You have then just fed the anti-Mac geeks a piece of hardware they can return to and make their own.
??????
Make kabillions! :D
Any chance we could get your dog to run for public office? The fact that he knows it’s a mess (it is), and that he’s confident he could do it better, makes him a candidate for public office. However, once elected, will he still chase cars?
I am constantly amazed at how expert some posters write regarding the business side of tablets and the market Apple created. Â I doubt they have ever been responsible for building a successful business. Â I am of the opinion (I know, my opinion is just that) that many are thinking out of their own wallets … college students, maybe a smart developer, but rarely someone like Tim Cook who managed the entire manufacturing support operations for years … contracts with suppliers for parts, standard or custom, plus the volume needed to meet expected demands. Â He has been spectacularly successful.
It’s been proven that people really want the touchpad… but only if it’s less than 100 of your local currency. It’s also been proven that people don’t want it if it is over 100 either. End of feasibility study.
I can say w/o any hyperbole that bunch of dogs & cats working together could have done a better managing this debacle.
It really pisses me off cos webOS is (was) the only OS that could have taken on iOS and succeeded.
“It’s also been proven that people don’t want it if it is over 100 either.”
Not true. People are successfully reselling them on Ebay for well over $100.
“after not even a month”
From July 1 to August 18 is more than a month.
I have one. Implementing all of the speed tweaks and overclocking is a time-consuming and confusing process. Once done, I would say it went from being dog-slow to barely adequate. “Snappy” is not the right word to use. Many trivial tasks still take seconds to respond.
WebOS is definitely better than iOS is several aspects, but the lack of apps and iTunes syncing really hurts.
Personally, if it just got the Netflix app alone, it would be about 3 times as valuable to me as it is now.
If HP relaunch the TouchPad because of firesale sales, then they’re mistaking breakup sex for a proposal.
Sorry to see it go. More competition is better for all parties involved…including the consumer.