WOW! Did not see this coming. HP ends Palm/WebOS based smartphones

This is a placeholder blog posting just as acknowledgement now. I just heard HP announced they will end the Palm/WebOS based smartphone production and sales. I did not see this coming. I thought HP was smart to buy Palm, the right owner for Palm to help turn it into 'big' success and that HP should have seen ever more evidence that the Palm acquistion was indeed the right one. Now they threw it all away. I think this will be judged a mistake half-way into the decade, but yeah. I'll return with my analysis later (on this same blog topic). But I did want to post the news - another death in the Bloodbath - and to let my readers know that I think this is not a smart move by usually very smart HP.

Update 21 Aug: I have now posted the analysis blog on HP abandoning smartphones. You may want to read 'Did I miss a memo?'

Comments

[MBT]

Hi….thanks for this good information.I’m so happy because it’s very useful for my thesis research.

[Vasco Duarte]

The move seems to be a "blind-sided" move my Leo Apotheker. He wants to make HP a software powerhouse and is not busy throwing away the baby with the bath water.

This move is further confirmed by their acquisition of Autonomy in the UK. But HP without HW will be a much poorer and less innovative company... Unless...

[Daniel]

Many peopla said it was a mistake when IBM sold there PC/Notebook-business to Lenovo. That worked out just fine. Let's see if HP can make the move to software and services.

[Eric]

Europeans CEO are certainly more timid. HP have always been in computing devices and to throw away this business segment is really a short term deficiency brought about by a timid European CEO. This is a disgrace to HP supporters and users. Well, we can ONLY say, be very careful when European CEOs are appointed to american companies. It will usually shrink the companies.

[samsonite]

Yeah well Apotheker was former sap guy so in the hind sight we see that board wanted to change hp to enterprice software company. So board chose this man and his backgroud to do this change.

Like nokia with elop.

Hp counted that great os is not enough, you can not force the ecosystem to grow. You can start it and nurture it but it has to have bit of luck with timing, people and other aspects .

Sad move on the other hand.
Nightmare: only apple and moto-google on mobile.
Only apple and taiwanese/chinese on computers.

Not very promising visio for innovation.

But this is quaterly economy.

[Avro]

I wouldn't go too far with that. Steve Ballmer has been at the helm while Microsoft's stock value declined by 50% and Michael Dell is not doing well at Dell (it rhymes!).

[antti]

What a great record has that guy called Ari Jaaksi
http://jaaksi.blogspot.com/

First he was leading/doing Maemo/Meego with Nokia -> DEATH, and then webOS with HP -> DEATH.
And now, I'm wondering what could be the next for him, probably if he could come back to Nokia and take over SilverLight or XAML for WP, then WP will be also dead hehehe...

That's a karma, traitor...

[PERUS]

Well, I would say that's an another good news for Microsoft-Nokia in case of WP and ecosystem.

[alex]

Smart move by HP, very far sighted. They see the writing on the wall for the PC, and that they are far too behind in mobile (phones and tablets) to become a leader that is highly profitable. Sure they could dabble around a bit longer in devices, but better to focus now all energy on shifting the company away to another high growth area where they can compete better. No guarantee that this will work if they just copy IBM. they need to carve out their own strengths.
Michael Dell is laughing now, but he is on a clearer path to distinction than HP - Dell has nothing in mobile.

[alex]

Sorry I meant extinction not distinction.

[Peter]

HAHA, HP captured 1% market share with WebOS after 1 year,
Microsoft 1.6% with both WP and WM.

HP quit the mobile sector, the next will be Microsoft to quit mobile sector ?

IF without Nokia's self-inflicting support for MS WP7, Microsoft might also have quit or cease the R&D on WP7.

It confirms again, three ecosystems are: Nokia, Android, Apple.

[kevin]

Tomi, your post is another indication that you still don't really get it.
1. Microsoft was the only winner of the horizontal PC structure over the last 20 years. Being a device maker without owning the core technology leads to tiny margins, and profits really do matter.
2. The mobile industry includes not only smartphones but tablets, and not only are both needed, but they need to be part of the same ecosystem. Failure in one will lead inevitably to being disadvantaged in the other.

HP recognized this, and with the abysmal failure of the TouchPad, it realizes it is too late to establish a third ecosystem.

[Peter]

JavaVM (Android) is inefficient,
Silverlight/WPF (WP7) is .Net which is same inefficient as JavaVM.
Qt/Object C is superior efficient than above two.

From Tech angle, may I predict winning mobile ecosystems:
Nokia's symbian/meego
Apple's iOS.

[Peter]

@kevin, micsoft and HP are within the same rang of mobile market share.
HP WebOS captured 1% market share from zero
Microsoft captured 1.6% market share from 2.6%.

If hp quit, shouldn't microsoft also quit ?

Now it is clear, without nokia's self-inflicting support of wp7 since 6 months ago, microsoft should have already cut windows phone division.

It confirms again, Nokia needs to fire Elop immediately and restore nokia to smarphone leader with updated symbian and innovative meego.

I am be glad to provide free tech support for nokia.

[Peter]

okay, let me give a brief tech analysis on wp7.
wm5/6 is based on windows ce plus .net framework 1.1/2.0
wp7/7.1/7.5 is based on windows ce plus directx plus .net framework 3.0/3.5/4.0

Silverlight 4 is web browser plug-in which is .net component underneath is directx11 which works with gpu when there is no gpu, it will use cpu to simulate gpu work.

so without gpu, wp7 is deadly slow,hot and can use up battery within 1 hour.

with gpu it might can last for 8 hours with normal use.

that's why you saw the sea ray in the infamous elop's leaked video, it connected to usb to power it for a mere 30 mins demo.

since silverlight always relys on directx even for a simple text rendering, it consumers big battery power all the time for all kind of apps not just video gaming.

from this angle, its battery life is even worse than android.

thats why microsft will dump wp7/7.1/7.5 and move to wp8 which is completely different wp7 series.

so elop spent 12 months to port nokia device drivers/apps to a soon obsolete platform ?

should nokia share holders sue Elop in Finnish Court ?

[TDC]

They should have at least let HTC have it !!!

[Peter]

after fire Elop/Jorma Olilla, nokia needs to invest in cloud service to catch up with apple. or use amazon cloud service for short term.

nokia symbian/meego + ovi store + ovi cloud (or amazon cloud for short term)
apple iOS + app store + iCloud

--------------------------------------------------------------
will be the kings of mobile world

[KPO'M]

This is a risky move by HP, but with the Autonomy acquisition, they clearly have dreams of becoming the next IBM. Thus, they appear to be ditching the commoditized PC market, and also decided they didn't have the time or energy to be a player in tablets, which is largely a consumer market.

It will be interesting to see who acquires the PC business, and if anyone decides to pick up WebOS for the IP. Perhaps Microsoft or even Apple might want the patents if there are any worth having. Apple probably needs to spruce up iOS over the next couple of years, and perhaps some WebOS IP would come in handy. Microsoft might find some ideas for Windows 9, too.

Anyway, I think what it does show is that MeeGo would have faced daunting odds in the mobile devices market, particularly if Nokia tried to scale it to tablets. WebOS was pretty slick, and the TouchPad was probably the closest competitor in terms of ease of use and features to the iPad. However, Best Buy purchased 250,000 of them last quarter and reportedly sold only 25,000, despite the price cut to $400 and a massive TV and print ad campaign in the US. HP is taking a $100 million charge, which suggests to me they are either buying back that unsold inventory or subsidizing it so that retailers can have a fire sale to clear their stock. A MeeGo tablet likely would have met the same fate in the US, and with Apple reportedly close to a deal with China Mobile, its chances in Asia didn't look much better either.

[Jonas Lind]

FYI: it seems that HP communicated this in an incredibly clumsy way. According to insiders, they are NOT going to sell or trash webOS, just the hardware division. They want to keep webOS and license it.

The Next Web: "An inside look at HP killing webOS hardware: Here’s how it really went down"

Link: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/08/19/an-inside-look-at-hp-killing-webos-hardware-here%E2%80%99s-how-it-really-went-down/

[peter]

Another new CEO Leo Apotheker of HP is same crap as Elop.

Don't think it is bad business decision. It is economic crime at the same level as Enron case.

Now we got two Enron similar cases:

one is Nokia's Elop who dumped nokia winning product line to use non-available crap ms phone line. Elop caused nokia investors $160B loss;

the other one is HP's Leo Apotheker who bought a software company with $1B revenue at $11B, Leo caused HP investors $22B loss immediately;