“Hewlett Packard knows it has a tough fight on its hands in the tablet and smartphone market, where Apple has raced out to a big lead on the strength of astonishing iOS developer momentum,” Kevin McLaughlin reports for CRN. “But HP insists its strong channel partner pedigree will make the WebOS development story a more compelling and profitable one than Apple’s.”
“HP is planning major investments in training partners to add WebOS development and mobility practices to their product mix,” McLaughlin reports. “Stephen DeWitt, senior vice president of HP’s Americas Solution Partners Organization, suggests that the level of partner commitment HP brings to bear is pretty much unheard of within Apple’s iOS development ecosystem. ‘Apple’s relationship with partners is transactional, completely. Apple doesn’t have an inclusive philosophy of partner capabilities, and that’s just absurd,’ DeWitt said in an interview Monday at HP’s Americas Partner Conference in Las Vegas.”
McLaughlin reports, “Solution providers that have done business with Apple have voiced similar concerns in the past. Those that continue selling Apple products have done so despite feeling, in some cases, like Apple doesn’t have their best interests at heart. But mobility is an area of IT that hasn’t been traditionally handled by the channel, so it’s tough to say that Apple is missing the boat here. HP, nonetheless, is forging ahead with its partner-oriented WebOS message.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Before HP blathers on about channel partnering, perhaps they should shut up and ship something to their “partners” first and prove that they’re more than just webOS-branded retail shelving dust collectors, for a change.
HP’s upper management needs to read Atlas Shrugged.
They’d get more out of Pirates of Penzance.
“Still, perhaps it would be wise
Not to carp or criticise”
If HP could do it without partners, they would. Buuuuut…
Exactly. They are trying to bribe their partners because their partners don’t care one whit about WebOS.
The genius of the iDevice ecosystem is that it allows third parties, big and small, to make gobs of money off the ecosystem–music, apps, movies, TV shows, peripherals, ads, e-books–in spite of the fact that it is a very tightly controlled ecosystem and the rules are still evolving.
When you consider how Apple abuses its partners – most notably the Apple Consultants Network – HP may have a point.
Especially those hundreds of thousands of App developers who have made al,ost instant millions off Apple’s Free SDK…
Not sure what you mean by that statement breeze. Just clarifying for my own benefit: Apple’s SDK is not free. I wouldn’t consider app developers to be partners.
You wouldn’t huh? That’s gratitude for you then…
Apple, themselves in their developer agreement and guidelines, strictly say that the application developer programs are not a partnership of any kind or an affiliation with Apple.
Well then look a gift horse in the mouth
“Apple’s SDK is not free.”
Damned right! It’s $4.99! 😉
Actually, it is free. You can register and download the SDK without buying XCode directly or spending the $99 to join the program. You just can’t provision your device or submit your app to the app store.
Having spent considerable time in the ACN, I disagree.
The program provided me access to things I wouldn’t have gotten without. The summer camps I have been to were great learning and networking opportunities.
Sure, they won’t bring you the business, sure you do not get access to secret info, but how did they screw you?
The ‘channel’. These people make me vomit.
Dell and HP complaining and whining because their ‘super-fun ride has come undone’ (steely dan).
The iPad is an appliance thats programmable with a low-cost, or free, SDK.
Any company can write apps and run them within that co. with ZERO interference form Apple.
Thats why they like it – they simply buy the iPad, get software updates for free (Bill Gates explodes), and make the thing do what they want, security and all, within their own company.
Its NOT a computer, or a ‘tablet’, its an Appliance that uses a computer to work.
NO-one can beat this because Jobs has built this over 10 years – the IOS, the form factor, the Apps, the entire stunning, game-changing eco-system.
Goodbye Dell, Goodbye HP, ta-ta, Micro$oft – your ride is over, now piss off.
I now realise how annoyed I am at the IT depts that have so often ‘blathered on’ about Dell and Windows. God its been a drag all these years.
Can we hope for an end to these morons and their appalling waste of public money on expensive and useless IT projects involving wintel? (See UK NHS for evidence)
I believe the iPad is the beginning of real change in the world of ‘IT’.
A fast evolving paradigm is multi touching everyone by one by one. It’s unstoppable and in it’s infancy – iPad, iOS.
It’s curtains for the monkeys.
iPad Rules the Post PC world.
Isn’t Rubinstein still running the WebOS division? When Palm launched WebOS, they didn’t work very well with their developer partners. I hope they’ve learned some lessons, otherwise Stephen Dewitt will have been talking out of his hat.
Apple also doesn’t have a balloon faced monkey hammer. Which makes as much sense as this CEOnglish
HP Dell et al like everyone else ship ‘jobs’ overseas. They really have nothing to offer for the future of the country. On the other hand, Apple is creating hundreds of thousands of jobs for developers. We should be investing money in making kids smart. Not moaning about lost manufacturing jobs. Smart work is the future. As it was the past
Then why are all the states drastically cutting their education budgets? And North Carolina is looking at “repurposing” the revenue from their “education lottery” – the state lottery that was supposed to give all it’s profits to education without undercutting education existing funding.
Because that’s the way all politicians work. See Social Security.
Anyone know what they are going on about? Baffle them with weird science when you can’t impress them with logic and clarity, or a product.
So, let me get this straight. HP is getting their ass handed to them by Apple, so the way to beat them is by doing more of what they have been doing, but faster, deeper, and more often. Apple is merely ahead via absurdity that will surely be beaten by doing the same shit that got HP where they are now. That makes sense.
Sure, when viewed in isolation, treating “channel partners” (I had to wiki this one) non-inclusively may be absurd. But when you pull back at all, it is obvious that this is part of Apple’s “the best way to get is right is by doing it yourself” method. From that perspective, this is part of Apple’s successful strategy. This is pretty obvious. Unless you are an HP exec that wants to follow the MBA playbook. I mean, why abandon it when it is working so well?
Isn’t that the definition of madness, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?
This is pure nonsense based on the fact that HP is trailing in the race for growth and profit margins, and now the iPad is starting to blow the roof off the traditional business of heaping overweight junk on pc sheep customers. The page has turned and these guys were not prepared for it.
Blindsided by design. That’s what happens when you head’s up your ass.
So they will be handing out free bags and thumb drives?
On the other hand? lol WHAT? Apple is no more a job creator than any other american ‘outsourcing’ mega company.
Any computer or device that is selling is creating ‘jobs’ for developers. That isn’t inclusive to any device!
Every iPod/iPad/iPhone is made in China.
You are kidding yourself if you think apple is a job creator in this country!
That being said I do want iPads in industry. Its the first tablet that might actually *work* in the enterprise 🙂
And how many of HP’s printers are NOT made in China? (Their printer division accounts for most of their profits.) How many of their monitors, or the components that go into their PCs?
I’m not debating that one bit!
I’m simply pointing out that its a joke for someone to believe for one minute that Apple is a ‘jobs’ creator in this country while a company like Dell or HP is simply shipping all the jobs overseas!
All of them are nothing more than large corporations who ship jobs to the cheapest corner of the earth.
Sure some jobs get created here and there (Apple Retail or HP suppport contractors physically on site for example) but none of these companies is more ‘american’ than the next when it comes down to it.
The Apple Stores (brick and mortar) are employing Americans.That’s not bad.
There are also many in Cupertino that might be surprised to find that what they have is not a “job”.
Also, I see iPod/Pad/Phone accessories showing up everywhere (my local drug store!)… someone is designing, shipping and stocking them.
I’m a hardware tech. The explosive rate at which Apple sales have increased over the past decade means that there are many new jobs being created in America.
Someone has to fix these things 😀
So, what project idea did this guy have that was turned down by Apple?
Sour puss…
> Apple doesn’t have an inclusive philosophy of partner capabilities, and that’s just absurd,
“Inclusive philosophy of partner capabilities”? It’s “absurd” that VP’s at HP can’t speak to the media plainly. Yes, Apple’s business practices are so “absurd” that HPQ is now worth about $90B and AAPL is at $320B, for market cap.
HP is obviously adopting Apple’s self-reliant “philosophy” by severing or curtailing reliance on its “partners” Microsoft and Google to provide key software for its products. HP is SO “absurd”…
Apple has “partners”: Best Buy, Radio Shack, media companies, and more. Apple just focuses on the customer, because if the customer likes it, the buyer buys it, the partner sells it, and everyone wins. Microsoft and HP have a different tack. They build products for their partners, not their customers. The customers don’t like it, the buyers don’t buy it, the partners can’t sell it, and everyone loses.
Isn’t channel partnering what RIM does? I suppose it’s slowed Blackberry’s market share erosion somewhat.
@ Dude McFarland
Yes, Apple’s products are manufactured in China. So are Dell’s Both companies’ products are manufactured by Foxconn.
However, I think that the employees in Cupertino, in the Apple Stores, in Radio Shacks and Best Buys, as well as the datacenter in North Carolina would differ with you. The telephone support people and the repair facility in Texas might disagree with you and agree with them. Then there are the people in corporate sales (which you don’t hear about) and the Washington lobbyists. Not to mention the companies who are selling custom iPad and apps to the military.
lol no more than HP’s approx 68000 US employees with would differ with the assumption that HP just ships jobs overseas.
Speaking of support that group in Texas must be pretty small supporting apple products. I worked with a firm and we trained a large number of apple support reps over a one year period. They were not in Texas! Not even the U.S… not even close!
So… HP talks about channels and business partners. Apple talks about the consumer. Who’s got the consumer’s best interest in mind??
I partnered with HP in another life. They were completely “channel-centric” until they weren’t. When they decided they could “better handle” the partners’ customers, they just took them. No warning. No discussion.
If you shake the hand of anyone at HP, check your pokets afterwards, and count your fingers…
So,
Dell, HP and MS create a three-pronged public attack on Apple and the iPad (by association iPhone as well?). Surely it is not coincidental – the timing I mean?
The press reports the “gist” of the matter in the mode of a dramatic monologue – reporting only one part of the conversation. So what? To what advantage? Who actually listens? Who is being manipulated?
Is this a pep rally for IT’s who are never going to switch sides? They like their bread buttered just fine, thank you.
Does this subterfuge trickle up or down to the decision making of CEO’s or COO’s? Surely they will recall the $$$$ they approved for R&D of all of the failed (so far) tablets from their own companies?
In other words, how efficacious is this publicity barrage?