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Is the Quick Death of Failed Tech Products a Good Thing?
Joining the ranks of accepted submitters, HumanEmulator writes "The NY Times reports on how the Hollywood summer-movie business model is being applied to tech products: 'Every release needs to be a blockbuster, and the only measure of success is the opening-weekend gross. There is little to no room for the sleeper indie hit that builds good word of mouth to become a solid performer over time.' New products are being pulled from shelves only weeks after a lackluster release. What if the TouchPad, the Microsoft Kin, or even Google Wave had had more time on the market? Is this blockbuster-or-bust model a good thing for consumers, or for the industry in general?"
I knew a guy who started .com companies like popcorn. His business plan was the same for all of them: be successful enough until someone bigger buys you out. His goal was to work for a year at trying to get a thing going, then sell it for a couple million dollars for that short duration that it would be hot. Most of these things were very transient. They were unknown a month ago, on the rise a week ago, popular today, and by next month they probably wouldn't even be a memory.
I think these big companies learned their lessons. They tried over and over to pump money into these little concepts that never had longevity as a part of their plans. They bled red ink.
So if they don't see that initial wave, they're cutting the bleeding off now before they pump additional useless money into a concept that never will make it. It makes financial sense.
John
No it was priced right according to iSuppli who did the teardown. If HP sold it at $150 there would have been a loss on each device sold.
http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/News/Pages/HP-TouchPad-Carries-$318-Bill-of-Materials.aspx
They probably COULD have saved money somewhere, but they already chintzed on the plastic in the back.
The real problem is there were no apps. There was no real push by Palm OR HP on gaining developers. At least not one like there should have been. Plus the SDK was REALLY late. By that time, Palm was already dead in the water, HP picked them up and did NOTHING with them.
Gorkman