“HP is preparing to reengage in the digital music market, following the termination of its exclusive deal with Apple to distribute HP-branded iPods,” Macworld UK reports. “The company’s executive vice president Todd Bradley confirmed such plans last week, during which he also revealed the company would honour its contractual obligation to install iTunes on PCs HP ships until January 2006. Beyond that, the future of even vestiges of the HP/Apple deal are shady.”
Macworld UK reports, “Bradley stressed his belief that opportunity remains in the digital music market, but gave little away: ‘It’s going to boil down to who can create a solution that lets you get the music you want, when you want it, and where you want it,’ he said.”
Full article here.
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Related MacDailyNews articles:
Analyst: Hewlett-Packard may want to make their own MP3 music players – July 29, 2005
Report: Hewlett-Packard to stop reselling Apple iPods by September – July 29, 2005
HP adds ‘Apple iPod shuffle from HP’ to digital music player line – July 01, 2005
Hewlett-Packard adds ‘Apple iPod mini from HP’ to iPod digital music player lineup – June 02, 2005
Hewlett-Packard expands branded iPod lineup, announces ‘Apple iPod photo from HP’ models – April 12, 2005
Hewlett-Packard adds ‘iPod dock holder’ to latest Media Center desktop – March 31, 2005
What’s the point of continuing the ‘Apple iPod by HP’ deal? – March 30, 2005
Hewlett-Packard ousts CEO Carly Fiorina, and what was with that ‘Apple iPod by HP’ deal anyway? – February 09, 2005
Apple, Hewlett-Packard debut new iPod television commericals – August 30, 2004
Hewlett-Packard-branded Apple iPod to debut Friday – August 26, 2004
Why Hewlett-Packard took Apple’s iPod shortcut – February 02, 2004
OH NO!
pretty much been done. Already.
“TODAY”
anybody who buys a PC will download iTunes, so this is not a big deal. the market already know about itunes. mission accomplished
‘It’s going to boil down to who can create a solution that lets you get the music you want, when you want it, and where you want it,’
Uh…news flash dude. Apple did that already. Quite a while ago… Have fun making also rans.
Not surprising. What do HP get from iTunes now that they are not selling pods.
Even worse for them, Apple will soon be selling intel PCs with a better OS. That may hurt HP big time. They will proably the next in line to get hit by the changing PC market. Can’t innovate, so can’t compete with Apple. Can’t build cheap enough PCs so can’t compete with Dell and Lenovo. Whatever is left of their client base will slowly drift off to other vendors.
Seems like Apple already has. No?
It doesn’t matter, Apple got all they needed out of HP already. They helped open up new markets for the sale of iPods (Radio Shack, Wal-Mart, etc), plus they bundled iTunes with all HP PCs for almost 2 full years. Now that iPod/iTunes is the defacto standard, they don’t need the assistance from HP anymore.
I bet apple stock will go up… telling.
What good does it do to tell your daughter to stop having sex AFTER she is pregnant? The rubicon has already been crossed. The rabbit has died.
anything Carly did now. Does not matter if it was good or bad. Kill it now!
Daft!
Ask your customers what they want, then give them lots of it. HP were in a perfect position to negotiate with Apple to get the MacOS onto their boxes and iPods, just in case Apple ever did take off. This doesn’t stop innovation, just like their using Windows hasn’t stopped their innovation.
Now they’re putting themselves among the also-rans in boxes, accessories and operating systems. I smell a MS-shaped rat holding back HP from bundling iTunes – look for the bundling of ‘Urge’ in the next few months for confirmation of this.
When your management become cowards, your engineers lose the motivation to innovate. Come on HP, get a grip on your future, away from MS.
While I don’t see HP going anywhere soon (up or down), it does look like their consumer offerings are less than bright. They have a wide range of products, so this will only be one hit to them, but I can’t see a rise back to prominence in the PC market. Looks like their other products such as printers and servers may be their future. I doubt that music is in their future.
Well, this does mean something. Face it, people are lazy, and the more people Apple has using iTunes by default, the better. Not that I’m worried, mind you, because Apple forges it’s own path, and I think people better start jumping on board rather than fighting it. We’ll see. 2006 I think is gonna be very entertaining.
Off Topic: I been using the new Apple mouse for a little while now, and that scroll bar they have on the mighty mouse is friggin touchy – takes awhile to get the hang of it…
It’s a shame, as every bit of exposure for Apple helps in the long run.
But it is not surprising when you consider that HP is now competing in the retail segment with eMachines and Lenovo. All you have to do to see where they are going is to consider the products they had on the shelves at WalMart this christmas season. $400 for a laptop? $300 for a desktop?
In this space, they will do whatever MS tells them to do if it means getting windows licenses for a couple of $ less.
Microsoft influence at HP expanding?
Maybe.
They just announced they are going to support BOTH HD DVD and Blu-ray Disk because Blu-ray Disk would not immediately commit to supporting Microsoft’s proprietary iHD sofware.
HP originally supported ONLY Blu-ray Disk. Now, HP is claiming they must have must have iHD support in Blu-ray to stick with them exclusively and HP claims they need that commitment NOW. Since Blu-ray says they are “considering it” HP has “jumped ship” and endorsed HD DVD too which does support Microsoft’s proprietary iHD software.
Now is HP dropping iTunes support (and pre-installation) because they are going to support a music system based upon Microsoft’s software? Seems like that could be very possible.
Is HP becoming a Microsoft shill? Evidence does not contradict this. (Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.)
Completely off-topic, but does anyone else notice their pointer disappearing when moved into the top left region of this window/page. Mine disappears or flickers when positioned over the first three bookmarks in my bookmark bar, and this affected region extends about another 2-3 inches downwards onto the ‘page’. It seems to be related to the flash santa ads that are displayed, as when I scroll down the page so that the ad next to the feedback box is in full view, the disappearing behaviour stops (actually, just noticed that it then affects the right side of the bookmarks bar). Scroll back up, so the ad is out of sight and my pointer again starts to disappear/flicker. Very weird.
Running Safari 2.0.2
Hmmm…..
Apple should have “iTunes Inside” and “iPod Ready” stickers for the PC makers who do want to bundle iTunes.
Just keep the stickers off Macs; we already know they’re iPod ready.
Once again it’s Apple against the world … maybe this time it has a chance.
People are a lot smarter than the last time they had to choose between cheap crapola and innovation.
Unrestricted multinational corporations – Good
Government – Good
MicroSoft – Good
That’s the way it was a few years ago …..
Looks like HP will be embracing M$ technology. Seems a bit like jumping in the ocean and swimming toward the Titanic once it had set sail on its maiden voyage.
Good luck with that one, HP.
“Not surprising. What do HP get from iTunes now that they are not selling pods.”
What they got was making a little money not loosing money. They also received a lot of respect by giving their customers what they wanted.
Bring on the 2006 iPod killers!
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We ship hp computers with our hardware soultions. they’re sh*t. since there is no mac platform that can fullfill our needs i’d rather we are seriously considering switching to dells.
we need a mid range power mac type confiuration to fullfil our needs. apple should bring back a g3 type power mac…
peace
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“‘It’s going to boil down to who can create a solution that lets you get the music you want, when you want it, and where you want it,’ he said.”
Someone, tell me this guy’s joking!
Shouldn’t that read “Future of HP computers in Doubt” ?
I love my iPod and iPod nano. But then again, I loved my Atari 2600 and 7800. As I thought back then – surely no one could ever make a better system. All the games are on Atari. Then came Nintendo. Then Sega. Then Sony….
Enjoy it while it lasts. Todays iPod is tomorrow’s nostalgia.
Okay. He’s joking. [MW: support.]