Back in May 2010, Tom’s Guide’s Devin Connors gave the world the following gift:
8 Reasons Why Apple Should Fear HP/Palm:
1. HP is Great with Acquisitions
2. The HP Brand Name
3. HP’s Money
4. WebOS: Beyond the Smartphone (there is no doubt that the OS will branch out to slate PCs and netbooks)
5. HP Means a Better App Catalog
6. An Immediate Connection to the Business World
7. Beating Apple in the Hardware Arena
8. HP, Palm and Content Delivery (with a company like HP pulling the strings behind the scenes, Palm could be positioned as the number one paid content provider in the smartphone world.)
Read more prescient genius in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If this retrospective helps to constipate similar pieces in the future, so be it.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Hewlett-Packard’s abdication: What hath Apple wrought? – August 19, 2011
When HP loaded webOS onto Apple’s iPad, it ran over twice as fast as the TouchPad – August 19, 2011
More blood on Apple iPhone’s and iPad’s touchscreens: HP discontinues webOS phones, tablets – August 18, 2011
*snort*
I love the understated MDN Take today.
FUBAR!
8 for 8.
“7. Beating Apple in the Hardware Arena.”
What planet was he on when he wrote that?
*maybe* and that is a BIG FREAKIN’ *maybe* had Mark Hurd stayed in the driver seat, made various extremely smart moves and sacrificed enough goats they might have *survived* in Apple’s markets.
I do not see HP ever beating Apple. I mean come on they were clueless when the Woz showed off the Apple I and they are clueless now.
I wonder, how is it that Apple still alive and became the most successful company in the world and the biggest tech company with so many “iPod, iPhones, iPads, MacBook Air killers”?
I mean, there is like 3 or 4 new “apple killers” or companies that will beat apple every month. How can apple survive?
A soothsayer, that man is.
…or a toothless sayer …
I hope people didn’t invest based on this guy’s predictions.
Apple? Fear? Apple is like this elderly lady…
“I made a traffic stop on an elderly lady the other day for speeding on U.S.166 Eastbound at Mile Marker 73 just East of Sedan, KS.I asked for her driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance. The lady took out the required information and handed it to me. In with the cards I was somewhat surprised (due to her advanced age) to see she had a conceal carry permit. I looked at her and ask if she had a weapon in her possession at this time. She responded that she indeed had .45 automatic in her glove box. Something, body language, or the way she said it made me want to ask if she had any other firearms. She did admit to also having a 9mm Glock in her center console. Now I had to ask one more time if that was all, she responded once again she did have just one more, a .38 special in her purse. I then asked her what was she so afraid of?
She looked me right in the eye and said, “Not a damn thing!”
^ Awesome.
A compliment from the legendary ChrissyOne! Thanks!
But the main question is, has she discharged the Glock in anger? Has Apple shot anyone or is that self inflicted wounds?
Another insipid and puerile post from the King of Inanity. Congratulations, BLN. You have lowered the bar once more for the imbeciles of the world!
Are you implying that you’re an imbecile for not understanding the import of my post? Or is what I wrote too deep for your shallow brain to grasp?
Obviously, self inflicted.
Not only that, but HP shot themselves in the foot and after observing their handiwork decided that wasn’t sufficient, reloaded then kneecapped themselves.
I’ve seen their touchscreen slabs o’ plastic and nearly 2″ thick laptops @ Best Buy. If that is their best response to the iMac they should get out of the consumer business.
I like your analysis, I like it a lot. Haha.
No doubt, most of the wounds suffered by Apple’s competitors were self inflicted. HP released the TouchPad half cocked. Part of the problem, as I understand it, was the development team was told to freeze the hardware specifications and design despite knowing full well during the testing phase that they were a generation behind the iPad 2 and that the OS ran faster on the iPad 2 than on the TouchPad.
They fumbled the launch, then had to cut prices drastically to drum up interest. Effectively HP killed the TouchPad themselves. Nobody did it for them, certainly not Apple.
So what you’re saying is, in competition with a device produced by Apple, HP was in no way affected by Apple?
Apple raised the bar so high that those who choose to compete have to get some serious training done before they embarrass themselves on the field.
Looks like Devin would be a good person to look toward when making investment decisions. Some people have a special knack for going in the wrong direction.
5. HP Means a Better App Catalog
Bull. Shit.
Merciful heaven! This guy should immediately see a doctor !!!
Devin has to stop drinking his high end martinis and wine his power lunches before he analyzes and writes.
Must have been some powerful shit that he was on.
Fat, dumb and stupid is no way to go through life.
http://twitter.com/#!/devinconnors
Oh. My. God. That was my first visit ever to twitter. Devin convinced me that I need not ever go back.
I haven’t seen an article so far off the mark since Bill Palmer (of Beatweak Magazine and that’s no typo) ranted that Apple would never produce a “headless iMac” Once the Mac mini was revealed Palmer called Jobs an idiot, denounced the company and predicted doom for the product. That was in 2005. Months after the Mac minis release he still vehemently denounced its development in spite of growing interest in the product.
Palmer, who doubled down on the insults whenever anyone pointed out his flawed prediction, took so much heat for dissing any and everyone that he eventually shut down his blog, deleted all his articles and archives and hid behind his sappy mag. Even today, finding a way to contact him via his mag is not a straight forward affair.
Today, the TouchPad is a non-starter, webOS has been unplugged, Palm is dead… and the author of this article is keeping his head down and his mouth shut. Palmer could have learned something from this guy.
HP figured out how to compete against Apple in the tablet market. Write off billions in R&D and advertising and the sell your product at a $300 loss.
#9. None of the above.
Goes to show, your average analyst is nothing but a buffoon who couldn’t cut it in the industry at a real job.
No wonder people have such a hard time with the stock markets. Morons like these confuse the masses.
well to be fair, this guy was assuming HP was really serious about Palm and was going to put huge resources into WebOS. and maybe Mark Hurd was. but once he was gone HP clearly cut back its goals to just pushing out a tablet quickly without building up all the support for it first. and then Apotheker comes in with the up front bias against any consumer products and pulls the rug from under it. this writer could never have foreseen such a sharp reversal. no one did.
Agreed. The smack down was a bit undeserved as no one could have foreseen that Hurd would be ousted on a sexual imbroglio and that HP would appointed a software guy as CEO in his stead.
But even so I’m not letting him off the hook so easily as he assumed that HP would beat Apple in every department without even considering HP’s poor record with consumer products. I don’t think the result would have changed that much even if Hurd were still around to ride shotgun over the development process. Shall we say that Hurd is no Jobs and leave it at that.
Good point.
Then again maybe HP should not have rushed into the tablet/smartphone business to begin with.
They wasted time and resources on Palm when they could have been developing something other than big, heavy, plasticky, cheap looking laptops and half-assed touchscreen desktops.
That article is somebody’s joke. I don’t believe this is serious.
Oh it was serious, all right.
HP doesn’t have an app catalog. Apple has more money than HP. Apple has a more recognizible name brand than HP. Web OS isn’t finished, incomplete. IOS is on it’s 5th revision proven to work. HP is getting out of the hardware business which means Apple is beating HP not the other way around. Lots of fantasy in this list but know facts.
Oh sorry. HEADLINE should have read, “8 Reason why HP failed.”
in the UK HP sauce is a brown sticky fluid used to make offal and gristle ( our national dish) more palatable.
This is what happens when a geek tries his hand at standup comedy. No these jokes will not work.