HP fiddles while Apple innovates

22 Comments

“The paradox of Hewlett-Packard only gets more pronounced with each high-profile product announcement: its TouchPad tablet is the latest head-scratcher,” Brooke Crothers writes for CNET. “Meanwhile, Apple continues to spit out one stunning product after another.”

“HP’s paradox is that it sits in the cradle of innovation–Silicon Valley–but fails to innovate,” Crothers writes. “And a recent statement by [HP CEO Leo] Apotheker doesn’t offer much hope. ‘If you use a state-of-the-art laptop it is as sleek, as slim as [an iPad],’ he said at the D9 conference last month. Really? I have yet to see an HP laptop that comes near the iPad in thinness (0.34 inch) and portability (1.33 pounds). In fact, the only thing that gets close is another Apple product: the 11.6-inch MacBook Air.”

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Crothers writes, “That brings us to the TouchPad. Probably the first high-profile product to emerge with his imprimatur. In a word, disappointment. I listened to HP’s Jon Rubinstein talk for most of an hour about the virtues of the TouchPad (before it was announced as a shipping product) at a Qualcomm conference in San Diego last month. And I stood with an HP product manager later in the day as he demonstrated the TouchPad (and got some hands-on time, albeit brief, with it, too). In the end it was a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing about innovation. The TouchPad is a thick, relatively heavy black slab of plastic, just like a dozen other no-name tablets on the market.”

Much more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Note: Push Notifications have been restored. Thank you for your patience.

Related articles:
Rubinstein addresses poor HP TouchPad reviews, compares webOS to Apple’s early Mac OS X – July 5, 2011
HP TouchPad simply cannot compete with Apple’s iPad 2 – July 5, 2011
Pogue reviews HP TouchPad: ‘Doesn’t come close’ to Apple’s iPad – June 30, 2011
Mossberg: HP TouchPad ‘simply no match’ for Apple iPad 2 – June 30, 2011

22 Comments

    3. As I recall, the pads on the Enterprise weren’t as good as an iPad, or even a TouchPad – you had to have a separate one for each program! The flexis in Andromeda are something else though.

      Reply

  3. “MacDailyNews Note: Push Notifications have been restored. Thank you for your patience.”

    Lol, I thought it was me…
    I’m bashing my head against desk yelling at my iPhone not giving me any notifications for two days, not just MDN.
    I thought I did something to my iPhone, all is well again.

    HP hasn’t mattered in at least 5 years. They are like rim, everything they do backfires.

    Reply

  4. “Imprimatur”?! Wow – there’s a new word for me. See, HP *are* innovative! Look how innovative their writing style… Oh, hang on… that was the journalist…

    As you were!

    Reply

  6. HP’s problem is simple – bad management.
    FYI, “apotheker” is German for “pharmacist.” Leo really ought to take that as a sign from Fate that he is in the wrong line of work.

    Reply

  7. Things are not as easy. This tabled was designed for “consumers” while the “Windows Tabled” was going to be for business…. I dont know how many people really got the windows 7 tablet. I think HP has changed their original position because is really “hard” to get into the consumer market right now…. The HP table still has “problems” but looks great for me. I am not going to buy it but looks great and the navigation sheet system is interesting. ArsTechnica says is the 2º best… I am afraid they dont like Android much

    Reply

  9. I really hate to see this happen to HP. Once upon a time, they made the greatest test equipment in the world–perfectly tailored to the needs of the engineer. Then came Carly Funkaroni. I guess she chased off anybody with real ideas. Sad.

    Reply

    1. Do you know what is wrong with the HP TouchPad? Actually, it’s not the TouchPad’s weakness per se, but it’s HP’s loss of its creative juice. HP was once a great company; in fact, it was one of the grandest of granddaddies of tech? But it decided that taking the shortcut route is best for its bottom line. It decided to fawn over Microsoft in order to get a leg-up on the competition. It wanted to be the most favored concubine in the Microsoft harem. In fact HP and Dell were the favorite concubines of Microsoft because they often got the best treatment from Microsoft. In the end HP became too servile to Microsoft’s featherbedding that it gave up its independence to do its own thing.

      Lately HP tries to wean itself off Microsoft’s largesse. It’s a bold act but it will take time to regain its mojo. Best of luck to HP.

      Reply

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