Among the several shocking announcements in the tech world last week, was probably the most shocking of the year! I’m, of course, talking about the news HP released last week. First, they announced that they will discontinue manufacturing the mobile devices they JUST BARELY RELEASED. Then they announced that they had been approved to either break off or sell off it’s Consumer PC division! What exactly does that mean in regular every day terms? It means that HP has pretty much said they will no longer manufacture laptops and desktops! As a huge Dell fan, this news couldn’t have thrilled me more. I was still shocked to say the least. So now that you know the latest… what does it mean for you?
Would you buy one? Now that the future of HP laptops is unsteady, how would you feel about purchasing an HP laptop or desktop? If HP isn’t going to stand behind it’s hardware right now, then I wouldn’t feel comfortable purchasing the hardware either. Not that I’m biased or anything. I’ve got some great Dell’s with some excellent support I can suggest to you!
What if you own one? Say you already have an HP laptop, are you nervous about whether or not your warranty is going to be valid once all is said and done? Where will you turn for support?
What HP is saying is that it’s going to focus on software more than hardware, which I think is a crazy way to look at it. The reason is if everything resides in “the cloud” you still need some type of hardware to access it. Why would you want to get out of the hardware business in this case? Next we have Google, who has always been about software, and is now getting into the hardware game. If you were already there, and fairly successful at it, why would you want to get out?
We also have it’s mobile hardware. HP only recently purchased Palm to manufacture webOS devices. They released the phones, and the tablet. The TouchPad was only released 6 weeks ago, and now it’s a thing of the past. Over the weekend they went even more crazy and sold the TouchPads in a fire sale for $100 a piece. The devices sold like crazy, while everyone tried to get their hands on super cheap great device. Here is another thing that the fire sale has proved. If you are going to compete with the iPad on the tablet front, you better price yourself right. If you are going to price your tablet right inline with the iPad you are going to lose. Especially if it’s an operating system people are unfamiliar with. I think even Android tablets are priced slightly too high. Give people a reason to switch and you may just gain a LOT of customers.
So… sorry to see you go HP… don’t let the door hit you on the way out. I leave you with some encouraging words from Michael Dell’s Google+ profile…
“Goodbye HP
Sorry you don’t want to be in PCs anymore
But we do more than ever”
This post may contain affiliate links, which means I receive compensation if you make a purchase using the links.
Been a Dell fan for a very long time.
Boo! I love HP and hate Dell from personal experience. HP was at a a Pepcom event tonight with laptops and monitor. So now I’m super confused of they really are stopping or not.