If you haven't been living under a rock for the past few days you most likely noticed that HP, as in the biggest PC vendor in the world, has decided to dump its:
- PC business
- The smartphone and tablet business
- Buy Autonomy for $10 Billion
What will happen to WebOS is unclear. It seem HP is looking to license it to OEM's.
The logic as explained by the CEO Leo Apotheker is that HP needs to get out of the low margin PC business to focus on the higher margin enterprise software market. The logic echoes the one used by IBM when Big Blue sold its PC business to the Lenovo Group. It is a result of the glut in the PC market and the impact of the iPad. I am specifically not saying tablets because let us be honest about it – there is no contender at the moment.
All of us who hoped HP could have a dog in the fight over the new computing in the form of the Touchpad with Palm's WebOS this is sad news. I personally always thought that WebOS is a platform that could give Apple a run for its money if only someone big would put big money behind it and a real strategy. Palm did not have the resources and when HP announced its acquisition of Palm my hopes went up. After all HP has an engineering history and has the wallet to support a big push.
Unfortunately it seems HP lacks the balls. Only after a few months after the Touchpad entered the market – HP is waving the white flag. What did they expect? First of all if the product was not ready, they should have waited until they feel it is and then launch. And if they felt is was ready they should have soldiered on and learned from the feedback of the customers. One could make the contrast between the launch of the Touchpad and the launch of the original MacBook Air. When that machine launched the reviews called it underpowered, expensive, lacking features and so forth. The sales weren't any good. But did Apple pull the plug? No, because they believed in the vision of a thin super fast computer you could actually carry around. And so they went back and came with the killer laptop that is this generation of the MacBook Air. I think HP did not really have a vision or did not trust the vision of the few who did.
If you believe it is a strategically sound choice – then why did HP buy Palm in the first place? Did they really think they could get it right after only a few month? Apple spent years researching and developing what we today know as the iPhone and iPad. Why on Earth did HP think they could do it faster? I believe when HP decided to buy Palm they should have taken the time to formulate and setup a clear vision and strategy on how to compete with Apple and Android in the smartphone and tablet markets. They should have accepted that while they are buying an interesting platform they need to commit to supporting it in the longer-term. This way it was just a waste of shareholder money.