HP Personal Direction?

A few months ago HP made several important announcements:

   1. Possible spin-off of their PC division
   2. Purchase of a software company (Autonomy)
   3. Discontinuing the WebOS mobile platforms

Unfortunately for CEO at the time, Leo Aptheker, the rest of the world became very uneasy with points 1 and 3. Stock prices plumetted. Several questions come to mind, why? Why? And why?

  1. For shareholders it could make sense. The PC division could also gain flexibility and innovate faster.
  2. Software is a high margin business with great ROI (remember this!)
  3. They weren't selling as much ad they thought they would.

So surely they could've announced it better? Of course, why do you think poor Leo "stepped down"? Just with rumours of current CEO's, Meg Whitman, possible arrival; stock prices increased! So a few days later she was appointed of course.

27th October 2011, Meg announces that HP will be keeping the PC division. Great news, we're no longer in limbo. What about WebOS?

We first have to ask, why didn't it sell? First, how many people actually heard of the HP Touchpad prior to the "fire sale"? So marketing could've improved a bit. Second, I'm in South Africa, we had it in country for less than a week when it was pulled from market. I.e. Coverage could be better. Third, WebOS had few thousand apps, which had to compete with Apple's 350k+ and Androids 250k+ apps at the time. So what? How many apps does one need? Just migrate the top ones to start with. Very few people will have more than 20 apps on any given mobile device. Most of them being social media, mail/calender and popular games.

HP will say that it didn't sell because it was too expensive. The "fire sale" does support that concept to a degree. They were sold out within two days at a price of $99 and prices stabilised between $200 - $300 on eBay(yes the place Meg came from). Imagine what price it would've stabilsed at if the product wasn't going End Of Life?

So why did I need to blog this? At about the same time of Leo's announcement Apple took the lead as top company in the WORLD. Personal Computing hardware is a low margin business for everyone. Including them. The profits came mainly from software (app) sales. (Told you to remember Autonomy)
HP had the opportunity to be a much more stable competitor to Apple than Android could be, apps could be scrutinised and optimised to the hardware. Similar to Apple. Additionally, development could include incredible integration with their other business units. Imagine playing Angry Birds, receiving a mail for a new service to be launched, you initiate change control and approval processes immediately from your device. It's approved quickly as it's all electronic and no paper required. And resources provisioned from a template you can select off your Touchpad. Within five minutes you've done the equavalent of 2 months of work without leaving the canteen!

No, this is not far fetched and yes, you can create similar apps for different OS's. Imagine the integration of all devices if everything ran on the sleek WebOS (as a form of hypervisor)? From laptops, to printers, to servers, network and storage. Possibilities are endless! HP would be able to grab the consumer and commercial market.

Without using the Touchpad, I knew it's stable because that's what the HP brand name brings. Reviews on it, support that. Playing with a demo confirmed it.

Meg, not only mentioned HP is keeping the PC division but implied they looking at Windows 8 as the future mobile platform OS they'll. Helloooo??? It's also new to the market. I doubt they'll do much better on numbers compared to the WebOS first few months. Yes, Microsoft has been marketing Windows 8 as the best thing since WiFi. As a business partner pointed out, last time Microsoft was so excited, Vista happened! Eeeek!

Anyway, to end off on a feel good note, I leave you with what is known as HP's "Rules of the Garage", rules inspired by the character, morals and work ethic of the founders of HP. Bill Hewlett and David Packard.

Rules of the Garage


Believe you can change the world.
Work quickly, keep the tools unlocked, work whenever.
Know when to work alone and when to work together.
Share tools, ideas. Trust your colleagues.
No Politics. No bureaucracy. (These are ridiculous in a garage).
The customer defines a job well done.
Radical ideas are not bad ideas.
Invent different ways of working.
Make a contribution every day.
If it doesn’t contribute, it doesn’t leave the garage.
Believe that together we can do anything.
Invent.