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HP and Apple Separate; Apple gets Custody
Kasracer writes "Yesterday, The Register reported that HP separated from Apple's iPod selling agreement. 'Doing its best to erase Carly Fiorina's mistakes, HP has culled an iPod reselling agreement in place with Apple since January of 2004.' It is unclear whether or not HP will create an mp3 player or partner with another computer to fill the void."
or did I miss the point of the partnership in the first place?
[optikshell.com] My weblog / gathering of neat (read geek) stuff.
Out of the $1.2billion from iPod sales made by Apple, HP contributed $15million.
That's not much in the scheme of things, and even less when you consider the size of most of HP's other markets.
I mean there has to be some rational reason for this. -Their own device -An up and coming competitor -Perhaps they didn't think their profit margin on it was good enough -They weren't getting the mindshare of consumers But whatever the reason, it just seems bad to distance themselves from something so wildly popular. (Actually reminds me of when David Duchovney left X-Files*) *This statement is a joke, not a flame.
I don't get it.
The iPod line was changing quicker than HP was getting updated models, currently a sub-generation behind with just getting the 30GB Photo in and Apple cut it from their own line, I think that's about a three or so month delay.
As the Register article points out, it points out that HP really wasn't about "invent", despite their logo.
"Partner with another computer to fill the void?"
Does nobody edit these submissions?
What HP really needed to make this deal a winner was an "HP Store". They could have employees dress all trendy and sell HP products and accessories for their iPod, as well as explain this whole deal to the public.
...It's an HP iPod!"
"So, this is an iPod, right?"
"No way, man. It's an HP iPod"
"But it looks like an iPod"
(pause) "Righteous! But it's totally an HP iPod. See this logo on the back?"
"But I wanted to get one of those iPods my friends have. I thought this was one."
(longer pause)
http://www.walkingtaco.com
The day they quit making calculators is the day everybody knew HP's strategy was going to become utterly wrong. Whatever venture they decided to pursue after that can be safely regarded as not-very-sensible. The wording of their PR statement after the iPod settlement simply confirms that they still don't have a clue what to do next.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
How did such an agreement ever make sense from HP's point of view? When people buy an iPod they're often buying into the ethos as well as the functionality. They want the brand. HP re-marketing iPods is just brand dilution. And there was nothing special about 'their' model anyway.
I can totally understand HP's position on this. Selling the iPod doesn't fit into their current corporate strategy of offering products that absolutely nobody wants.
As far as I know, their contract stated that HP has to wait until 2006 before they can release their own MP3 player.
Unlike what the article says, at least for a while (a year I think), HP cannot make its own MP3 player or sell another one, because of a Non-Competition agreement they made with Apple at the beginning of their iPod selling. I mean, it is possible that they decided this period of time without an MP3 player for sale was worth it for what they would do after, but who knows what will happen at that point.
All of the iPods HP ever sold were compatible with both platforms out of the box. I don't even think they sold the 3G ones, but I can't remember for sure. You have to use iTunes to set it up initially anyway and you can always reformat it to use the other platform later.
I can see a salesperson saying something stupid like that. After all, mauve databases have the most RAM.
I'm not surprised at this. Apple weren't really all that bothered with this, it would only generate so many sales. Apple are all ready selling iPods in almost every shop imaginable, so it won't harm then, and HP aren't gonna make much money, since who want's an HP iPod when you can get a real one straight from Apple. Frankly I'm surprised it lasted this long. I doubt HP will bother trying to develop something. After all, Apple already have like 85% of the market wrapped up, and what they don't, Creative and iRiver can haggle over. By the way, just once could we please have some actual reporting from Slashdot, not reposts from The Register or BoingBoing.
The truth shall always be free: Boris Floricic is Tron.
No wireless. Same size as an Apple iPod. Lame.
I spent $50 ($349 vs $399) less than the going rate for my 40gb non-color ipod. They were not behind when I bought mine and it seems to be exactly the same except with a small hp logo on the back. It works fine with my mac, and sams club gave me a couple year warranty for it for $15... I don't see why they didn't sell more?
I never got why HP did this. It looked nothing more than what it probably was--a desperate attempt to try to cash in on a popular name. Was there any reason to buy an HP iPod instead of an Apple one? Same price, same warranty, same everything, right? Didn't even have an HP logo on it, IIRC. I always thought the only people who would buy one were people who bought one at the same time they were buying a machine. Is it worth it to advertise, track inventory, etc., for what must have been only a handful of sales? (Evidently not.) No sense mentioning that carrying a competitor's product always seemed pretty dumb.
I hate to sound like one of those people who say "Apple is perfect and everyone should copy them" but one of the good things Apple has done recently is simplify and standardize their line and ComHPaq should really follow. PowerMac and PowerBook have been around for ages, and even if people might not know the name "powermac" (thinking instead of it as just "a Macintosh") there are just as many people who think *any* notebook is "a powerbook." iMac and iBook have both been around for over 5 years. Those items, plus the iPod, are the core of their line and just about everyone knows them. Those items, plus the Mac mini, eMac, and displays, are pretty much Apple's *entire line*, so it's easy to figure out what's going on, there is very little overlap and, even more importantly, clear distinctions as to *why* you should buy one over another--not just categories for categories' sake. (The only fuzziness comes from the 12" PowerBook. Lots of people ask me about that versus the iBooks, especially now that the iBooks have G4s. Otherwise, everything else is clear as day. People pretty much look at the line and figure out what they want in a few minutes.)
OTOH, only a few people even recognize the names 'Presario' and 'Pavilion' (nothing like carrying two lines that totally overlap; I see no difference today compared to how the lines were when HP & CPQ were two companies) and beond the general product names, look at the items--d4100y, d4100e, a1050y, a1010y, a1030e, a1000y, SR1020T, SR1010Z, SR1020V. (Yes, the mix of upper- and lower-case letters is just as ComHPaq describes them.) What the fuck is all that?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I think Godwin needs to come up with another law, the one that says at some point in a discussion, someone will find a way to point the finger of blame at Microsoft.
No, Microsoft currently doesn't have anything to compete against the iPod. Just the fact that Apple and MS are market rivals doesn't mean that MS would try to threaten a company like HP from promoting Apple products.
But, you know, what we've learned about Microsoft's tactics in the past.... :)
It is a legitiment question.
Wouldn't this be a perfect opportunity to engage their creative forces and reinforce their "Invent" slogan?
Just look at their line of PC's. They are just branded and assembled from off the shelf parts and motherboards leaving really nothing to distinguish them from the hundreds other PC assemblers. They don't even have unique software to offer as it all comes from another company (MSFT) now. HP Invent? Sure, if the definition of Invention is it take some product and slap on a sticker.
Their whole business model, outside of printers, is to resell other companies products as their own brand.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Apple gets Custody
Duh! Who do you think invented all of ipods anyways.
Go to the w3.org and put Slashdot.org through the validator.
For an iPod out of the box. They are all HFS+, but if you install the PC software before connecting the iPod it will prompt you to restore it to be FAT32. If you connect the iPod before installing the software, things get all confused, the OS will prompt you to reformat it, and it'll cease to play music until you restore it.
There used to be FAT32 iPods and HFS+ iPods from the factory, but not any more.
iPods don't journal their HFS+. I'm honestly not quite sure what good journalling HFS+ is anyway, I've seen many friends have their drive go corrupt even with journalling on, and it does slow things down a skosh too.
For HP's expanded retail market presence.
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
Same price, same warranty, same everything, right? Didn't even have an HP logo on it
;-)
Quick correction.......
Same price, different warranty, different accessories, and yes, an HP logo. But nice try! Go work for CNN or Fox.
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Its not an I-pod. Has features that I-Pods need expensive add ons for. AND it doe not RUN that MS Windows Media Player SHIT. Notheing like a MPeg 4 encoder and player for the same price range as a photo Ipod. WITH MP3 and WMA support.
Yes. This is why they don't need research anymore. It looks and sounds great to the management holding shares. But in the end when you don't add value to a product the people will eventually cut you out of the equation.
With the emergence of Taiwan, I would be shorting HP pretty soon.
Don't make me laugh. Sony pre-announced the VAIO Pocket over one year ago. In that time, Apple has sold, what, something like 18 million plus iPods?
3Q2005 iPod sales ~= 6.2 million units
2Q2005 iPod sales ~= 5.3 million units
1Q2005 iPod sales ~= 4.5 million units
4Q2004 iPod sales ~= 2.0 million units
3Q2004 iPod sales ~= 0.86 million units
Do Mr. Robinson and The Register seriously think that the VAIO Pocket is going to "kill" a product line which has sold nearly 20 million units just in the time since Sony pre-announced the VAIO Pocket? Never mind what the rest of the world has already said concerning the viability of the VAIO Pocket...
Apple isn't stitting in Cupertino on their hands, I'm certain.
I wonder if that same contract requires HP to install iTunes on every PC shipped through the contract period. I suspect that was what this deal was all about from Apple's standpoint.
And one more point to add that I just thought of. The strategy of rebranding depends heavily on 'brand' recognition. How does selling a strongly recognized brand like 'ipod' enhance the brand recognition of HP? It doesen't.
Its all about selling iPods in Wal-Mart. HP could get them on Wal-Mart shelves fast - so Apple "partnered".
Do you see any Apple powerbooks or ibooks in Wal-Mart? No - and soon you won't see iPods anymore. So the bulk of joe blow americans who buy all their crap and wally world will soon only have the choice of non-iPods mp3 players. Like creative's zen. Which supports wma (i.e. joe blow can use it with yahoo music and not have spend money buy iTunes songs). Which leads us back to Microsoft waging a DRM war.
Seriously, as I walk through there I wonder what HP doesn't sell...
Carly Fiorina was their mistake. I hate that woman. She ruined one of the most respectable companies in engineering. It's not just the calculators. HP used to be synonymous with quality in instrumentation. That's what Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started doing in their garage fer cryin' out loud! Now that's been spun off (how can you buy an instrument named "Agilent" with a straight face), the Australian Calculator Division is closed, THEY MERGED WITH FRIGGIN' COMPAQ, MAKERS OF THE CRAPPIEST COMPUTERS SINCE PACKARD BELL, and the HP brand means nothing more than "Mediocre PCs." Honestly, does she go and piss on their graves every week too? Is she sleeping with Satan? What's up with that woman?
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
I think MSFT put some pressure on HP to drop this partnership
Now that they're moving towards just supporting Windows Server on Itanium (no more HP-UX on PA-RISC, Tru64 and VMS on Alpha, or NonStop), they've become Microsoft's bitch.
Just junk food for thought...
Yeah, because as we Slashdotters know, there is nothing like "partnering with a computer" to fill that void.
I can even understand buying a waste like Compaq...but agreeing or even wanting to sell IPOD was ridiculous.
If this idea of selling IPOD through HP was indeed Mrs. Ciorina's idea she deserves to be kicked out.
I think she spent most of her time on being trim and fluffy. She should not have been made CEO, but a chief PR officer, or something similar.
Then most of the CEOs are like her...trim and fluffy.
Tat Tvam Asi
They are just branded and assembled from off the shelf parts and motherboards...
That's true in some cases, but not the entire story. HP doesn't just place a giant order to the factory for a bunch of motherboards. The company has specific performance and compatibility standards that must be met. If that can be done with off the shelf products, so much the better - it's less expensive because a new part does not need to be manufactured. But you'll find that in many instances, the parts in an HP computer (as well as a Compaq, IBM and even in a Dell) are not the same as the brand X part that you buy at the computer store. For better or for worse, those parts have been designed to meet HP's specifications.
What has really happened is that instead of designing their own parts, HP, et al, have shifted that design work to the component manufacturers. That makes sense to me because it's a significant cost reduction and puts the design work in the hands of the engineers who know the part the best.
I do it every day - I'm part of the design team that engineers memory modules for HP and others. They are industry standard DIMMs, but they are designed to the customer's specifications.
-h-
No, Microsoft currently doesn't have anything to compete against the iPod.
Microsoft is not concerned about the physical player per se, but every iPod that's sold means there's one more person who won't be buying music from an online store that uses Windows Media format. So Microsoft does have something to lose.
Just the fact that Apple and MS are market rivals doesn't mean that MS would try to threaten a company like HP from promoting Apple products.
What are you talking about? They've already done that! Years ago, when PC makers started trying to bundle Netscape Navigator, Microsoft pressured them to stop with threats like increasing the price they paid for Windows, or revoking their Windows distribution license entirely.
It's not really likely that MS threatened HP in this case, but MS is certainly no stranger to such behavior (Read from paragraph 230 in the above link).
~Philly
The day they quit making calculators is the day everybody knew HP's strategy was going to become utterly wrong.
Yea I was real disappointed HP stopped maker their calculators. I've still got my HP 15C but wanted to replace it with an HP 28. Then I found out they discontinued their calculators.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Carly just wanted to hang out with Steve Jobs and see if some of the coolness would rub off.
It didn't.
Where'd you read that? They support a full range of OSes on Itanium and will for the foreseeable future.
I think you hit the main reason -- Originally, HP announced that they were going to make a custom version of the iPod that could be identified as an HP product. They eventually just repackaged the "Apple iPod By HP", which really did nothing for them. They don't need to put their name on the box to resell iPods.
As for the original point about Microsoft, that's really the effect more than the cause. HP also pushes Linux a lot, and anything else they can get off-the-shelf with minimal effort. The entire computer industry is now reselling commidified stuff and only making a margin by exploiting branding and sales networks. HP has huge brand-recognition, and they don't "Invent" anything, only resell it. Even Apple has finally gone this route for hardware.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
I bought two HP iPods for my daughters at Costco for Christmas last year. They were 20 bucks cheaper each than other places, and they worked fine with an iMac and an eMac. I discovered the hidden benefit to buying them at Costoc when one got dropped and the screen cracked. It was unusable and unrepairable. It looked like I was out of luck until I called Costco. No problem, they said. Return anytime up to a year. No questions asked. So I did, and they did. I bought another iPod, same style, same Costco.
I drop several hundred bucks each month at Costco just on food. Now I look there first for all other items on my wish list.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
HP and Blue Gene reach nuptial agreement.
IBM and Earth Simulator could not be reached for comment.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
At the time that HP began to sell the IPod, it was a brilliant move on the part of Apple, because their distribution network was not as robust as HP's at the time. It was only during the deal that Apple began letting anyone that wanted to sell Ipods, and not just their approved retails like CompUSA or the Apple Store. HP was able to sell them at places like Fry's and Circuit City. I know that only reason that I have an HP Ipod is that when my father went looking to buy me one last christmas, there seemed to be a large number of HP ipods from various retailers.
College Humor at it's best
Not so. In 1998, they purchased $150 million worth of non-voting stock in Apple as part of a larger agreement between the two companies. They've since sold it, and don't currently own any substantial stock in Apple, I believe.
Agreed %110!!! And I was shocked to hear that she was on the list for the president of the World Bank.
FalconShould there be a Law?
....." Betty, you would never believe it but i was just on the phone with Betty and she was talking to Carly about this thingy called an IPOD. Anyway, I think Patty is on the other line...by Betty"
This makes no sense, but just reiterates the fact that Patricia Russo and Carly Farina inexperienced disasters. Company shareholders should now kick out Russo with a big proverbial, novelty clown boot.
enought with my rant
Journaling is 100% purely a way to repair the filesystem quicker than doing an fsck. It does not prevent any corruption on a drive ever, and it does not identify or correct problems when they occur. The journal is just a log, and instead of an fsck you replay the operations in the log file to ensure that every operation that was supposed to happen actually finished happening.
...what was the difference anyways between and iPod and a HP iPod. Was it just a different filesystem by default? or was it like the branding of the product? I don't remember anything on the packaging (I got an HP iPod a couple of months ago) like an HP tie-in for other HP Products. Anyone knows?
--MaxPowerDJ
Their whole business model, outside of printers, is to resell other companies products as their own brand.
This is not entirely true for printers either. Only the inkjet line is truly HP's own design. All of the laserjet engines are manufactured by Canon according to some design specs HP sets. The original Color Laserjet had a Konica Minolta engine, and so does the relatively new, but already ditched, digital copier line.
HP logo:
Hewlett-Compaqard
Invent
er...
Hewlett-Compaqard
Copy
Boy, how do I beat the "Your comment violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition. Comment aborted." lameness filter?
I guess this product was totally forgettable
http://research.compaq.com/SRC/pjb/
ah well...
In 1997 Microsoft bought $150 million of special, non-voting Apple stock. $150 million bucks might sound like a lot of money, but remember that at the time Apple had over a billion dollars of cash on hand and a market cap in the 8 billion dollar range.
Microsoft's holdings in Apple today don't even make the top ten institutional holders. You are completely wrong, in other words.
No, no, no! We'll call it ThePatrioticFuck's Law.
It sounds so much better.
It is called the Edelman law.
I know dozens of Dell owners, heck I even points friends and family towards Dell when they need a Windows PC and I don't feel like building (and supporting) one for them.
Dell shoppers look for the most specs (GHz, GB, pixels, pages per second, etc) in their price range. The Dell site is actually quite fun in that respect, they have many models and lots of accessories, one can easily spend an hour comparing prices and features.
Carly Fiorina, and the thousands like her, will ultimately destroy our economy. Unskilled, unintelligent, they use their lack of morals and moronic execu-speak BS to slither to the top, where they inevitably fail, costing the economy millions.
Personally, I think such people shouldn't be fired or allowed to quit. They should be publically executed on the show American Executive Survivor. Something for the family.
Having said that, the question is: Are they any smarter now? If you look across their total product landscape, it's hard to see how.
HP, like Coca-Cola, is one of those brands that's both massive and powerful -- but not especially smart or self-aware.
"It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."
Who do you think invented all of ipods anyways.
HP did. Well, specifically Compaq.
Da Blog
Who would be more upset at the state of affairs with their legacy company?
I saw it more like a celebrity wedding. Stars (filmmakers or boxmakers) can always use more PR. Apple's bragging rights: Wow, a giant PC company is making iPods. HP's bragging rights: Yeah, we can be cool too. Which begs the question: why didn't HP brand it as hPod?
Charles Jo
"Foreseeable future" is about 45 minutes when Microsoft's involved.
...It's funny... laugh. :)
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Or the iMac. Is it one of the gumdrop CRT ones? Does it have a tray or slot loading drive? Or is it a DVD drive? Does it have firewire ports? What revision is? What color is it? How much video ram does it have? If you're trying to buy a used iMac, these can be very important questions - a DVD drive and firewire ports means you can probably get Tiger on it, otherwise you might have settle for an older version of Mac OS.
If I'm looking for a used computer, and they don't give the specs, but just the model #, then I wouldn't bother buying it.
I'm on one of the CRT iMacs, 600Mhz, CD-RW, firewire and USB1.0. This is pretty much the minimum specs on any Mac since Steve's return. (Except the Mhz rating for the older computers) If I were to sell my computer, saying I have a "Graphite iMac, CD-RW, 60G HD" is enough information.
The OS is on CDs, if the CD drive doesn't work, just about all Macs have at least one firewire and USB port, so get an external. Any Mac without a CD drive is probably too old to run OSX. (I still have my OS 8 install CD)
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela
Oops, I meant to say:
"600Mhz Graphite iMac, CD-RW, 60G HD, 256M RAM"
I guess the speed and RAM are important too.
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela
Once you're in The Club, it doesn't matter whether you screw up or not. Win, lose, or draw, you're still in The Club. It's not how well you do, but how you play the game!
They're on your Board of Directors, you're on theirs. You go to Vail, they go to Vail. You go to Davos, they go to Davos. Your kids go to Philips Exeter Academy, so do theirs.
She's been anointed. She's in The Club and can do no wrong.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
They'll take Debit cards.
+++
Cache In, Trash Out!
Well, this is a bummer... I guess all those rumors about HP selling a rebranded Intel based Mac really were just rumors. It's a shame too, because I personally think that Will from Maximum PC is right and Apple should release OSX through specific partners (ie: Dell and HP) well... I guess HP is out of the loop now!
-- Cheers!
But that's what I mean about Netscape... perhaps I wasn't clear. Netscape is direct competition to IE, unlike the iPod which MS has nothing directly to compete against (although your WM argument does make sense, didn't think of that).
What I'm saying is I don't think it'd be logical for MS to force competitors out of using a product they don't have an alternative for themselves.
HP's big failing in this better was that they were coming from a world, the beige box PC world, where a brand means the label you slap onto the beige box. The logo is your brand, and represents everything else that comes with your company's reputation.
I think HP honestly believed that people would look at an iPod with an HP brand and think of them primarily as HP products. After all, that's essentially what happens with all of their PCs ("Intel Inside" campaigns aside).
Apple's strength in this matter is that their logo is not the single indication of their brand - every cubic centimeter of their products scream, "hello! I'm made by Apple!" Their products are their brand. It's with good reason that Apple agressively pursues trade dress litigation against imitators - like a car, Apple's distinctive industrial engineering is the branding every bit as much as the fruit silhouette.
HP never saw it coming. Apple sucker punched HP, used HP's channels and connection while they were useful, and HP sat there confused, wondering why the mojo didn't rub off onto their brand.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
In my opinion, HP should work improving the quality of their own products instead of selling the best products of other companies.
HP decision to stop selling iPods is going to affect negatively their brand. Apple noted that HP is responsible for supporting the iPods that it sold.