On this HP Leaving PC/Hardware news….my take…
Hardware is not, has not for a while, been where IT is at. To many of you this is nothing new but reading some of the reactions to HP's action you would think it was a novel thought. It is not. Google, Amazon and Apple have had it figured out for a while now ..sell the service. Who cares how some one gets to the mall so long as they buy things when they get there. Amazon has an amazing variety of things to buy regardless of what OS or Hardware you are on…you can buy your meatspace groceries and gewgaws, music (in an non drm format that can be played on nearly all platforms) and even Ebooks(again this could be on their Kindle hardware or on any device that can run the Kindle app…which is nearly all devices/computers). Google is also following in Amazons steps in offering services and items for sale with near total disregard for what device or os you are using. In Apples case they are still pumping out hardware with a specific OS. Why? In order to lock the user into only going to one mall, Apples mall….cha ching comrade citizen cha ching .
Tablets and Smartphones (netbooks and laptops to some measure as well) are even more Consumer Service devices than the old desktop….you use them to consume information, play games , watch tv, movies and streams, listen to music/news, shop for more things and communicate with others. Most if not all these activities are based largely on the use of a service…the profit is not in selling you the device or apps to do these things but in having you use the services.
So where is the profit in selling hardware? Smart phones are given away for free or subsidized costs because those giving them away or subsidizing them have services you will most likely use that will make them enough profit to cover the hardware's cost…and then some.
Unless you are making something that is unlike most anything else on the market, meets a niche or you have a built in market that has historically proven they will buy the Brooklyn Bridge every couple of years…unless you have those things going for you making hardware is a loosing game.
So HP is finally doing something about the reality of the market…good on them…maybe they will come back strong in other areas like IBM did. You remember IBM, they used to make PC's and now they make thinking entities…yeah…wheres the fun at? Selling some one yet another PC or making Skynet.
