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  • HP Eats $100 Million Charge to Cover Unsold Stockpile of TouchPads

    Shawn and I talk about this on this weeks podcast a bit (not out just yet), but I wanted to touch on a few things about this. 1. The $400 per device number probably is not accurate, this was not a buyback for just Best Buy — likely for all retailers. I would guess the…

    Shawn and I talk about this on this weeks podcast a bit (not out just yet), but I wanted to touch on a few things about this.

    1. The $400 per device number probably is not accurate, this was not a buyback for just Best Buy — likely for all retailers. I would guess the number is $200 per device if not lower.
    2. It is not clear whether HP wants these devices back and thus are repaying retailers for the wholesale prices paid, or if HP was contractually obligated to do this once they canned the project. My guess is the latter which is why all of the devices are still on sale at Best Buy and other retailers, and buyback would mean that those sales would likely stop immediately.

    All we know is that there is a $100 million dollar charge as a result of unsold TouchPads — any reporting beyond that is pure speculation.

  • What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

    I can understand — and certainly agree with — HP’s exit from the PC business. Selling PCs is not the business to be in, the margins are thin and the competition is abundant. Unless you are Apple there is no real way to differentiate one computer from the next and thus you must compete on…

    I can understand — and certainly agree with — HP’s exit from the PC business. Selling PCs is not the business to be in, the margins are thin and the competition is abundant. Unless you are Apple there is no real way to differentiate one computer from the next and thus you must compete on price and blue LEDs.

    What I don’t quite grasp is HP deciding to run WebOS as a software only business, exiting the mobile devices business — one laden with competition, but proving lucrative for more than a few. At this point it would seem that the best move HP could make, for both them as a company and WebOS, is to sell WebOS to a willing buyer.

    (Hopefully any willing buyer would be smarter than HP and realize that it may take more than 12-18 months to start making money with the platform.)

    The scenario that sounds far more likely at this point though is that HP has decided to license WebOS. At first brush this may sound like a great idea, WebOS is seemingly *better* than Android and with Google buying Motorola you have some eager customers in Samsung/HTC.

    The problem?

    Well licensing is a good move for WebOS as a platform and for HTC/Samsung (giving them leverage for negotiating with Google). BUT, this is anything but a good idea for HP the company — that is if they want to make money off of WebOS.

    Here’s the thought process HP must have had:

    “We need to do something with this Palm crap. I can’t have it dragging down financials anymore and honestly the PC business looks like shit too. … Ok, I know, let’s do what IBM did and focus on software and big enterprise markets. Here’s what we do: we spin off the PC division, we kill the mobile devices and just license WebOS. We make WebOS the Windows of the mobile world!”

    *Brilliant*

    Except that this strategy isn’t making much money for Microsoft or Google right now.

    You know who is making a shit-ton of money right now? Apple. You know how? By making software **and** devices that work seamlessly together, also known as what HP acquired in Palm.

    So in a moment of critical importance for the future of HP, CEO Leo Apotheker decided that — in a world where Apple is crushing Microsoft and Google realized they need more control over hardware (like Apple has) — well Leo decided he wanted to be *more* like Microsoft.

    What could possibly go wrong?

    At least HP still has those printer cartridges.

  • WebOS Now With Less Hardware

    Mein FinanzNachrichten is reporting: >In addition, HP reported that it plans to announce that it will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward. WebOS is like Matt Damon’s character in Good Will Hunting — where there…

    Mein FinanzNachrichten is reporting:
    >In addition, HP reported that it plans to announce that it will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.

    WebOS is like Matt Damon’s character in Good Will Hunting — where there is a ton of potential that is being held back by the people in control of that persons/OSs life. WebOS just needs a company that cares about more than short-term profit — a hard shoe to fill in the current economy.

  • Apple’s Overloaded iPhone Button

    Luke Wroblewski walks through all the things that the iPhone home button can do. An example meant to show just how difficult it would be to remove the button in exchange for gestures.

    Luke Wroblewski walks through all the things that the iPhone home button can do. An example meant to show just how difficult it would be to remove the button in exchange for gestures.

  • AT&T Streamlining Individual Messaging Plans

    Smart move by AT&T to drop the $10/1000 message plan, and actually this is probably better for consumers. Here’s why: before the customer had to guess how many messages they will be sending, with the new plan the message is clear, “do you plan on sending text messages or not”. I am not saying that…

    Smart move by AT&T to drop the $10/1000 message plan, and actually this is probably better for consumers. Here’s why: before the customer had to guess how many messages they will be sending, with the new plan the message is clear, “do you plan on sending text messages or not”.

    I am not saying that charging more is a good thing, but it’ll likely solve a lot of problems for parents that, in the past, hoped their kids would stay under a 1,000 messages a month.

  • ‘Cupertino Envy’

    John Paczkowski, writing for a site with dark colored text, on Google’s motivations for buying Motorola: >A validation of Apple’s business model and a tacit acknowledgement that Google feels the company’s unified approach to hardware and software is the way to go — especially in mobile. I don’t buy it. If that is the leading…

    John Paczkowski, writing for a site with dark colored text, on Google’s motivations for buying Motorola:

    >A validation of Apple’s business model and a tacit acknowledgement that Google feels the company’s unified approach to hardware and software is the way to go — especially in mobile.

    I don’t buy it. If that is the leading motivation you buy HTC — they make superior products at this point. This was first and foremost about patents, anything else Google gains is just icing on the cake.

  • Evernote Acquires Skitch

    Andrew Sinkov on the Evernote blog talking about the acquisition of Skitch: >The full version of Skitch, which used to be $19.95 in the Mac App Store, is now completely FREE! There are no more trial versions, because you don’t need them. No more ads and no more restrictions, either. A nice move here too.

    Andrew Sinkov on the Evernote blog talking about the acquisition of Skitch:
    >The full version of Skitch, which used to be $19.95 in the Mac App Store, is now completely FREE! There are no more trial versions, because you don’t need them. No more ads and no more restrictions, either.

    A nice move here too.

  • HP to Spin Off PCs

    Bloomberg: >Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ), the world’s largest computer maker, is in talks to buy Autonomy Corp. for about $10 billion and plans to spin off its personal-computer business, people with direct knowledge of the matter said. IBM did a similar move with Lenovo for the very same reason: there is very little money to be…

    Bloomberg:
    >Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ), the world’s largest computer maker, is in talks to buy Autonomy Corp. for about $10 billion and plans to spin off its personal-computer business, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

    IBM did a similar move with Lenovo for the very same reason: there is very little money to be made in the Windows PC market. Very little. I do believe IBM actually has done much better financially since spinning off its PC division — there’s something to be said for this move.

    My question: where does this leave WebOS?

  • Dell Is Stuck Between an Apple and a Hard Place

    Stacey Higginbotham: >So Michael Dell is stuck trying to find a way to reinvigorate a consumer business where its name is synonymous with the aging PC, while developing tablets and other mobile devices to sell to both consumers and businesses. It’s interesting just how far Dell has fallen and how little value that name carries…

    Stacey Higginbotham:
    >So Michael Dell is stuck trying to find a way to reinvigorate a consumer business where its name is synonymous with the aging PC, while developing tablets and other mobile devices to sell to both consumers and businesses.

    It’s interesting just how far Dell has fallen and how little value that name carries in today’s consumer mind. Dell is not only taking a beating from Apple, but HP has its own OS for mobile now and Google has its own hardware company for mobile now — Dell is getting hammered from every angle.

    Dell could possibly be the RIM of the U.S. PC market.

  • Software Update Versus the Mac App Store

    When Lion came out the big deal was that it was available first (and honestly mostly) through the Mac App Store, only later gaining a USB stick option for an additional cost. Yesterday brought us the first update to the new OS and it came in via Software Update. That may seem all well and…

    When Lion came out the big deal was that it was available first (and honestly mostly) through the Mac App Store, only later gaining a USB stick option for an additional cost. Yesterday brought us the first update to the new OS and it came in via Software Update.

    That may seem all well and good, but how do you update all the other apps that you buy in the Mac App Store? Via the Mac App Store, not Software Update (though I do believe Pro apps are not updated that way).

    I mentioned this on [Twitter last night](https://twitter.com/benjaminbrooks/status/103681625040240641) and I was surprised that most people think the Mac App Store is a poor update method — mostly it seems because the Mac App Store won’t prompt you for new updates.

    ### The Problem with the Mac App Store and Lion

    There are two major issues that I have with Lion in the Mac App Store right now:

    1. They call Lion an app. More specifically they call what you buy from the Mac App Store an app, which what you buy is actually just the installer for Lion — but that’s not really the point since Apple doesn’t specify this.
    2. All apps that you buy through the Mac App Store must be updated through the store. Except, you know, for those super special apps like Lion, Final Cut X Pro, and so on.

    I don’t care to argue about the first one — it is what it is and most people will be better off buying Lion through the Mac App Store than they were getting physical media. If it bugs you too much then just think that you are buying the installer app and move on.

    The second item is what really confuses me. I don’t care one way or the other how I update my apps, just so long as it works, but the Mac App Store was supposed to make things easier — and buying Lion in the store only to have to update it outside of the store makes it more confusing.

    The problem is this: there is a new update for Mac OS X, it’s called Lion, I tell my Mom to go get that update from the Mac App Store and follow the instructions to install it. *Now* I tell my mom there is another new update for Lion and that she should install it as soon as she can. Where is she likely to go?

    My guess: the same place she went to get it to start with. This means I get a call: “Ben, there is no updates.” (Truth be told my Mom is *not* a Mac user despite my best attempts.)

    This is confusing. Yes, Lion will prompt users for the new updates and the Mac App Store won’t — this only matters to power users. Normal users will put those dialogs off as long as possible because:

    1. They have been screwed by those dialogs before.
    2. They don’t want to restart their computer.
    3. They don’t have time.
    4. What they are doing right now is more important that whatever that dialog says.

    There are more reasons, but you get the point.

    I fully understand the logic: keeping the status quo. I think we are seeing yet another seam in Lion’s transitional fur.

    I am not sure that updating Lion through the Mac App Store is the right way to go about it, but it would seem to me that Apple should at least show you that there is an update for Lion in the Mac App Store. This way it could kick the user over to Software Update, thus solving all of this.

  • Best Buy Sitting on a Pile of HP Tablets

    Arik Hesseldahl writing in the ‘cloud’: >According to one source who’s seen internal HP reports, Best Buy has taken delivery of 270,000 TouchPads and has so far managed to sell only 25,000, or less than 10 percent of the units in its inventory. Yikes. >This source suggested that the 25,000-unit sales number may not account…

    Arik Hesseldahl writing in the ‘cloud’:
    >According to one source who’s seen internal HP reports, Best Buy has taken delivery of 270,000 TouchPads and has so far managed to sell only 25,000, or less than 10 percent of the units in its inventory.

    Yikes.

    >This source suggested that the 25,000-unit sales number may not account for units that consumers return to stores for a refund.

    These numbers are just so hard to believe. Even if *you* think that the iPad is a better than the TouchPad — it is hard to believe that a retail juggernaut the likes of Best Buy can’t find more than 25,000 people that hate Apple enough to roll the dice on a TouchPad.

    [Once again](http://www.marco.org/2010/12/31/there-really-isnt-much-of-a-tablet-market) (all together now): there is *no* tablet market — just an iPad market.

  • BlackBerry Torch 9850

    Katherine Boehret on a BlackBerry enthusiast site: >I’ve been testing the Torch 9850 over the past several days and while its looks will lure you in, its place in the mobile-app ecosystem will push you away. This device, which uses an upgraded 7.0 version of the aging BlackBerry operating system, becomes available from Sprint on…

    Katherine Boehret on a BlackBerry enthusiast site:

    >I’ve been testing the Torch 9850 over the past several days and while its looks will lure you in, its place in the mobile-app ecosystem will push you away. This device, which uses an upgraded 7.0 version of the aging BlackBerry operating system, becomes available from Sprint on Sunday.

    Enticing… ?

  • S&P Says Sell Google’s Shares After Motorola Deal

    The AP via The Seattle Times: >S&P said Tuesday that while the acquisition would include a patent trove, that might not be enough to keep Google’s Android mobile operating software from encountering intellectual-property issues. It downgraded its rating on Google’s shares to “Sell” from “Buy.” S&P is all sorts of reactionary lately, ((It always it,…

    The AP via The Seattle Times:

    >S&P said Tuesday that while the acquisition would include a patent trove, that might not be enough to keep Google’s Android mobile operating software from encountering intellectual-property issues. It downgraded its rating on Google’s shares to “Sell” from “Buy.”

    S&P is all sorts of reactionary lately, ((It always it, truthfully.)) but still they not only changed the rating but cut the price target by $200. That’s got to hurt.

  • Freemium Mobile Gamers Spend Most Money on Items They Don’t Keep

    Jeferson Valadares on the Flurry blog: >The chart shows that over two-thirds of all items purchased in iOS and Android freemium games are consumable, goods that users deplete. Measured another way, approximately half of all real dollars spent within all apps are for game items consumers don’t keep. Based on our data, the most popular…

    Jeferson Valadares on the Flurry blog:

    >The chart shows that over two-thirds of all items purchased in iOS and Android freemium games are consumable, goods that users deplete. Measured another way, approximately half of all real dollars spent within all apps are for game items consumers don’t keep. Based on our data, the most popular virtual purchase, consumable or otherwise, is for “premium” in-game currency.

    This is an industry they are predicting to surpass $1 billion in revenue — this year. This is astonishing to me and being that I am not in the group that plays these types of games, I just can’t see the motivation to buy in-app currency to use — especially knowing that I will have to buy it again at some point.

    Again, no judgment — I just don’t “get” it.

  • Lion Is More Painful Than Vista? Hardly

    [Adrian Kingsley-Hughes wrote a link bait article](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/os-x-107-lion-is-more-painful-than-vista/14242) one that I was going to let pass, but then I got to thinking about it and — well — I got a little more pissed. First things first: Lion has bugs. I know this and admit this — I have been using it since the first Developer…

    [Adrian Kingsley-Hughes wrote a link bait article](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/os-x-107-lion-is-more-painful-than-vista/14242) one that I was going to let pass, but then I got to thinking about it and — well — I got a little more pissed.

    First things first: Lion has bugs. I know this and admit this — I have been using it since the first Developer Preview came out and I know first hand how annoying some of these bugs are.

    Kingsley-Hughes writes a hardware column, not a software column. Now this doesn’t mean that he can’t comment on Lion, but perhaps he should be extra careful when doing so and double check what he is really trying to say. Even so he installed Lion on his Mac mini and reports three problems.

    Each of these three problems are rare oddities that a vast *minority* are experiencing. The third one, though, is a specific problem with iMacs — yet Kingsley-Hughes claimed to have installed Lion on a Mac mini. Maybe he has both, but if that is the case I — the reader — want to know if he is having the issues on both machines, because that would lead to a far more credible tale.

    Kingsley-Hughes’ end conclusion is the Lion is far worse than Vista — oh really? I think what he maybe meant to say is that Lion is the Vista of Mac OS X (still wrong, but a better comparison), but that is *not* what he did say.

    I had Vista Ultimate two weeks after it came out, I know what Vista was like. Let me tell you some of the issues I had:

    1. There are literally two disks to install Vista with, a 32-bit and 64-bit. So even after I decided between the seven or so different versions I still had to figure out which version of the OS to install. Yay me! Now you maybe thinking well that is easy, what kind of processor did you have. Do keep in mind that Vista came out right around the same time that consumers started to get their hands on 64-bit Intel chips. I actually didn’t know there was a difference in the disks and installed the 32-bit version only to have to install the 64-bit version later on.
    2. My sound card didn’t work. In fact my sound card wouldn’t work for another month after the install. Yes, for an entire month that computer had *no sound*. I went out and bought a USB sound card to use for gaming, but it didn’t work either (I can’t remember if I even got it working).
    3. Every ten seconds a dialog popped up asking if I would allow access (or something along those lines) to program/process/activity X. That was *fun*.
    4. My older games — the games that I ran a Windows box for — they mostly were not useable. After a few months most of the games were patched, but you know that took a FEW MONTHS.
    5. It took about a month (that’s being generous) before the graphics drivers were up to speed and fast enough to game with.
    6. Oh, did I mention that there was *no* upgrade path from Windows XP Pro and so any Vista user **had** to do a fresh install? [True story](http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Upgrading-from-Windows-XP-to-Windows-Vista). Now this was the 32-bit OS to 64-but OS, but just look at that linked table of the upgrade options a user has. Crazy right?

    So *even if* Kingsley-Hughes is having random crashing, wifi dropping and “videos freezing iMacs” — even if those are all real — he *still* has a useable computer when those things are not occurring, which is likely not that often despite his best attempts to “prove” otherwise.

    With Vista my computer was barely useable, and honestly wasn’t useable for what I wanted to do on it for months.

    Lion is not worse than Vista and saying so is a flat out lie.

  • Lie to Yourself

    MG Siegler on Google’s statement that Motorola will be left as a separate company and will not change their relationship with other Android partners: >I actually believe that Google believes that (or at least that many higher-ups at Google believe that). I just don’t believe it will be possible. And I think that eventually, Google…

    MG Siegler on Google’s statement that Motorola will be left as a separate company and will not change their relationship with other Android partners:
    >I actually believe that Google believes that (or at least that many higher-ups at Google believe that). I just don’t believe it will be possible. And I think that eventually, Google will recognize that it won’t be possible.

    His entire post is spot on. Google is not trying to lie to others — no — Google is believing a lie they told to *themselves* and is in turn telling that lie (unknowingly) to others as a truth. You should really read his entire post to see what I am talking about.

  • “Me-too Android Handset”

    John Gruber: >Why do Motorola’s products matter? Which one of their products is actually important in the market, and not just another me-too Android handset?

    John Gruber:
    >Why do Motorola’s products matter? Which one of their products is actually important in the market, and not just another me-too Android handset?

  • “Awkward Situation”

    This is a fantastic look by Florian Mueller at the Motorola-Google deal and the $2.5 Billion breakup fee that Google will pay if the deal doesn’t go through. The long and short of it: 1. There *is* concern that this deal will not go through by Motorola. 2. Actually, I’ll let Mueller address this: >If…

    This is a fantastic look by Florian Mueller at the Motorola-Google deal and the $2.5 Billion breakup fee that Google will pay if the deal doesn’t go through. The long and short of it:

    1. There *is* concern that this deal will not go through by Motorola.
    2. Actually, I’ll let Mueller address this:

    >If regulatory scrutiny delays the closing of the acquisition, Google could end up buying a company that is formally enjoined from importing Android-based devices into the United States. That would be a really awkward situation.

    Awkward indeed.

  • Rope-a-Dope, Indeed

    Spot on and awesome. Read the entire post. I saw the post in question this morning and couldn’t believe how bad it was.

    Spot on and awesome. Read the entire post. I saw the post in question this morning and couldn’t believe how bad it was.

  • What the Price Paid Says

    Florian Mueller: >Google said in the conference call that it would operate Motorola Mobility as a separate business, but the price Google agreed to pay is not reflective of the value of Motorola Mobility as a stand-alone business: that’s the kind of price paid by a strategic buyer who plans to use the acquisition target…

    Florian Mueller:
    >Google said in the conference call that it would operate Motorola Mobility as a separate business, but the price Google agreed to pay is not reflective of the value of Motorola Mobility as a stand-alone business: that’s the kind of price paid by a strategic buyer who plans to use the acquisition target as leverage for its (Google’s) own core business.