

Uncertainty is a major factor dragging down HP's stock








webOS family




HP TouchPad
[Image Source: Anandtech]



III. Uncertainty Weighs on HP, From All Fronts









Sources: HP, NPD Group, Financial Times: Forecast

Comments     Threshold


Pretty Sad
By elmikethemike on 11/22/2011 4:15:44 PM , Rating: 4
That next to no Android Tablets were sold in 2011.

RE: Pretty Sad
By chris2618 on 11/22/2011 5:09:36 PM , Rating: 2
I think its basically to do most people not being able to justify buying a tablet which can be priced similar to a good standard PC.

In my particular situation i can't think of when i need one. At home i have my laptop in my room and use it in the lounge if want to watch TV, I drive to University so obvious can't use it then, when at University a computer is never more than 30 seconds walk away and i haven't found a good way to take notes with a computer yet so don't need it in lectures.

Actually i can think of a time when i need one. When amazon has the Black friday deals on.

RE: Pretty Sad
By Fracture on 11/23/2011 11:30:43 AM , Rating: 2
My kingdom for a popular tablet with an infrared receiver/transmitter. I would love to be able to use a open source platform to control my tv, garage door, etc.

RE: Pretty Sad

RE: Pretty Sad
By TakinYourPoints on 11/24/2011 6:30:01 AM , Rating: 2
I think this will change with Amazon in the game. The problem with most Android tablets is no solid central authority. People don't want generic OS on generic hardware, they want an appliance that is vertically integrated and has services tied into it.

Amazon will deal with content delivery, app sales, be completely accountable for OS updates (something that's been a huge strike against Android in the past), and cloud services. This is something that Samsung, Motorola, etc, cannot do as they don't have control over the complete content/hardware/software stack in the same way that Amazon or Apple do.

On top of everything the Amazon Fire UI is very nice. I reckon we'll see a 10" tablet from them in a year or by 2013. IMHO they are the only real competition for Apple at this point, everything else is probably going to fail.

RE: Pretty Sad
By Mitch101 on 11/27/2011 6:55:41 PM , Rating: 2
I agree Apple seems worried about the Kindle Fire, Several people I know with iPads per-ordered the kindle fire. Apple has lost its grip on some of its fans without an iPad 3 especially when faced with a $200 rival. Black Friday delivered a lot of good 10" tablets as low as $230-$250 range that Im sure people thought about instead of an iPad.

Apple manufacturing in China workers on strike demanding more money which will cut into the profit line.

Android taking away market share from Apple on the Phone front and if Microsoft gets its act together soon enough. I Phone 4s might have gotten out the gate quick but its only a revised version of the iPhone 4 not worth of a 5.

Apple TV is going nowhere.
Apple computer sales have slowed as well I even read they declined.
iPod no one really talks about them.

Finally the stock has dropped from its high of 420+ into the 360's within 2 months but no article on that here.

Really Apple had no hot item for X-Mas this year. iPhone 4s is no iPhone 5. They would have slapped a 5 on it people would have sold kidneys.

A 10" Kindle Fire for $250.00 might be game over for the iPads. Dont forget the Microsoft tablets will be coming and many surveys show 40+ percent of people want one from Microsoft.

Sloppy Reporting!

No, 1.2 million non-iPad tablets were sold TOTAL.




RE: Sloppy Reporting!
Standard DT

Meaningless drivel
By Tony Swash on 11/24/2011 5:16:26 AM , Rating: 1
This report and the absurd discussion of it in this article is drivel. How can you make any measurements of the tablet market without including the iPad? It would be like measuring the performance of Apple in the PC market without including any Windows PCs - 'oooh look Apple has a 95% share of the PC market!' Drivel.

Assuming that Apple sold 10 million iPads in the US in the period covered by this report (reasonable given Apple sold a total of 25 million iPads in total in that period) then you get the following markets shares:

Hewlett Packard----204,000-----------1.8
ASUS ----------------120,000-----------1.1

RE: Meaningless drivel
By Chaser on 11/28/2011 1:09:55 PM , Rating: 2
As I have stated before unlike Apple buyers Android phone owners don't equate to potential Android tablet buyers the same way.

Android phones are a very popular alternative to Apple phones. But Android phone buyers are more tech literate and more cautious about the cost and utlity gain from any tablet purchase.

Whereas a high amount of iPhone owners will buy an iPad so they can have their next "tech darling" Apple gizmo to impress at airports and on airplanes, Android buyers are less likely to sheeple buy a tablet.

But the Kindle Fire has the potential to crash Apple's tablet country club. With its very affordable pricing, instant baseline functionality with books and media, tightly integrated shopping capabilities over Amazon's vast retail enterprise, and its "app store" (hilarious) The Fire is going to let the riff raff into the party so to speak at an undeniably prudent and afforable price.

If I were sitting on an airplane and the smug Apple iSnob quietly pulled out their iPad after take off I'd be laughing pretty hard on the inside after my Fire came out next. :)

Fans are actively trying to port...
By DNAgent on 11/22/2011 8:35:13 PM , Rating: 2
Cyanogenmod has done more than try to port Android...I'm running their 1.2 alpha version now and it is faster than WebOS ever was, even with overclocked cores!

Two paths.
By drycrust3 on 11/23/2011 5:06:07 AM , Rating: 2

Forecasts predict that within the next 4 years there will be several hundred million internet users who use a mobile device to access the internet on a regular basis. Of course, while that is an upside for of hundreds of millions of units for mobile device manufacturers, the downside is that demand for the static desktop computers will diminish. At first glance this could have been a serious problem for HP, so the moves the directors made looks sensible, but the is another way to view the move to mobile units.
HP had initially made more or less the right moves so that when their PC side was shipping less units, their mobile side should have been selling more. To be effective they needed to have a range of smartphones and tablets that were competitive in terms of price and performance. I can't see why, with a bit of care, most of their current subcontractors couldn't have switched over to producing the new inventory needed for those products while meeting the price and performance expectations, which would have given HP better diversity than they now have.
Since Microsoft is one of their subcontractors, it is understandable they would have been interested in supplying the OS for the smartphones and tablets, especially if my memory of there being criticism of HP's WebOS operating system and the initial high price one would pay for one of their units is correct. However, the situation at Nokia with WP7 and the success of Samsung with Android should also have been motivation for either Microsoft to hurry up with WP7 or for HP to release some Android based units, even if just on a trial basis.
Considering the number of patents HP hold, they could probably have got away with running Android on them without to much comment from Apple.
As it is, HP seem to have lost the plot. They made the change from test instruments to computers without too much fuss. They made the change from just computers to include printers as well without too much fuss. They made the change from just desktop computers to include laptop and server computers without too much fuss. HP staff even managed the to get smartphones and tablets alongside their existing line up. So all that was left was to improve the smartphones and tablets so they are really competitive for the price paid, but no, that was just somehow to difficult to handle!

