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It’s become pretty clear that when Leo Apotheker (Ex CEO SAP) took over from Mark Hurd that HP’s main focus was shifting away from end user computing to software. Big ass software.
HP board member Marc Andreessen on the why software is eating the world. You might not agree, but that’s the thinking.
Ok, it’s nice that Apotheker wants HP to be a software company. In which case, why doesn’t he quit HP and try to get a job as CEO of a software company, or maybe start his own company.
Instead HP puts out the TouchPad in July, and less than 2 months later, kills it, along with all credibility they will ever have for future hardware.
There’s a joke: How do you make a small fortune on Wall Street? Easy: start with a large fortune.
Apotheker has decided to turn a large computer company into a small software company.
Michael Dell must be laughing his ass off. His main competitor has just committed suicide. Dell still has to worry about Apple, but they seem to be happy selling phones.
I’m not happy. Most of the computers I’ve bought for myself are HP computers. They’ve been good machines. This is the largest computer company on earth and while profit margins may have been thin they were making money and the PC is not going away any time soon.
Why doesn’t this %$^#@ just spin off the computer division and move on?
No sane computer hardware competitor would pay jack for more of what they already own.
H-P has always been an inkjet consumer company. What product, that is unique to H-P, has H-P invented for the consumer? Other than inkjet there isn’t any. Trying to be Sony or Apple won’t work. Management lost their way and failed to see the importance of “Invent” for consumers. They outsourced their culture, lost their way, and now must start over and hope for success. Instead of copying others, H-P needs to “Invent” something new and unique. Not an easy thing to do.
Great link foobar.
Marc Andreessen appears to be a douchnozzle who enjoys pimping bubble-value stocks to help his friends out. Did he forget to say software would solve the energy situation, I think he didn’t.
Andreessen sounds like one of these people that have latched on to a hammer as the solution every problem (which he sees as a nail). His solution is the “software” hammer.
And then he rambles on about what software could do, while giving examples of ridiculous games, like “Angry Birds”, as an example of the promise of software.
Has that douchnozzle ever really written real software, or used a computer to do work?
Or, does he just run his mouth all day?
The Fuhrer is making progresses with his anger management lessons. He took it much better this time compared with when his HD DVD player became obsolete…
I love these and they make me giggle like Anderson Cooper.
Ehhh… Apple and Dell will make a similar choice eventually. Once you can display a tablet on a TV or a base to a computer monitor/keyboard/mouse, a standalone computer will only be useful to gamers. I love computers, but I can see the writing on the wall. Computers are too big, too bulky, and require too much space, materials, and power when a tablet can do 90% of what the average person uses a computer for in the first place. It’s only a matter of time before that last 10% gets filled.
My parents got a tablet and they haven’t used their computer in months. Why have a huge computer in the house when you can take a tablet with you everywhere.
As I sit here in front of my 27″ HD monitor (which is beautiful) Like there’s ever going to be a 27″ iPad, oh wait that would be a MS Surface.
Sad to see HP leave the PC world.
I have an HP 23-inch monitor for my MacMini. Damn fine screen that is.
Re: Grandpa said,
“H-P has always been an inkjet consumer company. What product, that is unique to H-P, has H-P invented for the consumer? Other than inkjet there isn’t any…”
I still have my HP-35 scientific calculator I bought in 1974! See wikipedia entry for HP-35.
HP has NOT always been an inkjet company. I remember HP test and medical equipment as the only product they made. Inkjets were a detour, and now they can’t seem to find their way. Agilent is the name on the test equipment now, and printers are the only thing with HP on them, I think. Carly Fiorina fucked up the company, and it has not recovered.
#13 I’ll give you that one, but that’s a looooong time ago.
PS: I actually ran the Tampo machine for the keys for that calculator in 1991 when I first started there in Corvallis, OR.
Since I had already planned to make apps for WebOS anyways I went ahead and bought 2 16GB for use. At $99 each it’s not too bad. If anything I can offload them to my sisters to replace their netbooks. They use mainly email, videos and photos anyhow.
Since it’s dead I guess I’ll be making my own apps for them 😀
Theone It has a nice programming model. Clean and easy to learn. Every geek went “Aw crap! More Java and Objective-C”. And no, I don’t think HTML5 will rule the day on handsets. Just my opinion – and everyone says I’m wrong of course. 😀
What? I personally think that the big boys (Oracle, IBM, SAP, Microsoft, etc) and their partners (Accenture, Infosys, HP, etc) are trenching in against the new players. I think all the big players are too slow and expensive to compete while maintaining backwards compatibility for their current customers. I see billions spent on big package implementations now by companies. 5 years ago it was hundreds of millions.
Therefore, I do think they are all vulnerable. New models for delivery and support are emerging and one of them will stick. It’s just a matter of time. Just my opinion, not based on numbers or anything. So, from that point of view I kind of agree with Andreessen.
As for Angry Birds – there certainly is a lot of pressure on Nintendo to start porting games to iOS right now.
BTW, screw HP, Apple and Google for tech news. This is the coolest tech story of the entire summer.
#5: “Marc Andreessen… Has that douchnozzle ever really written real software, or used a computer to do work?”
You mean other than write Mosaic/Netscape?
These get old pretty quick if you understand German…..
I don’t understand German (yes, that makes them funnier) but saw the movie a couple times and understand what they’re saying. I always laugh at the new (predictable) ideas they put into Herr Fuhrer’s mouth. I hope they make a video about Portugal’s loss of the Sub-20 Soccer World Cup 🙂
#21 Yeah, I had same problem then I used mute button.
#18, foobar, please continue to expound on your thoughts. I am interested. Is the increasing sophistication of these products creating development issues such that the costs of production, and delays, are going to eventually grind the wheels of innovation to a halt?
#20, Uncle Dave, I don’t consider Mosiac sophisticated, Enterprise Class, software? Andreessen is making statments on that kind of product’s future.
To me Moasic seems like little more than Microsoft WordPad, but loads “files” from network storage, and uses the idea of HyperText linking. Didn’t Xerox, or Douglas Engelbart, invent HyperText? Is he a “Real Programmer”?
Just seems like Andreessen is another Vivek Kundra to me. Way above his head, but the sharks haven’t taken a bite. You think I’m wrong.
The real point is, to me, that Intrastructure is what binds hardware, software, and money together.
And AT&T, comcast, Google, are all trying to limit the world in ways that make money for them.
So, software as a moneymaker, is doomed if it is throttled by Intrastructure.
And, I think software has become the bloated SUV of business. It isn’t efficient, (bandwidth hogging interfaces and throughput hogging software metaphores) but has become comfy, but hard to fix.
But those are just my views.
#24, What?: What browser in the early 90’s are you comparing it to that was more ‘sophisticated’? Lynx was text based.
Although the concept of hypertext was first discussed in the 40’s, it was Ted Nelson who developed the first practical hypertext model.
While you might not like Andreesen or what he said, he is considered an Internet pioneer who has the tech cred to say what he feels like.
Foobar
I just want to develop apps for it because I like the WebOS and its “true” multitasking features. I’ve designed microcontrollers using the 68k Motorola CPU’s back in the days and loved it. Was hoping to find the same thing 😀
Theone. That is always the best reason to write code. BTW I spent two years of my life writing 68k Assembler.
No, I don’t have a drinking problem now.
What?
1. Bloat. Think about Microsoft Word and the weird, incomprehensible complexity of it now. Multiply by that by the size of, say, Jupiter and you get the idea.
2. Acquisitions. Most of that bloat was caused by acquisitions which means that there is a web on interconnectness between various parts that would make your socks roll up and down. Think about trying to jam PeopleSoft into Oracle. After 6 years it all works together seamlessly now, right?
3. Customization. If you decide to buy a big package (say Siebel) then you’re better off pulling down your pants, bending over, and grabbing your ankles and saying “Ah, let’s do it the Siebel way”. Trying to customise these packages is like trying to dissect a blue whale with a scalpel. Only it would be 3000 consultants with scalpels. It’s better to just to change your company to work with the software, not the other way around. Of course, this means you are now a clone of your competitors.
4. Vendors. Vendors start off being vendors which means that the contracts group negotiated for cheapest labor cost. Makes sense because you’re spending $100 millions on software so you should get a deal, right? Then school buses full of inexperienced kids show up and make a mess of things. Then more school buses show up with more kids who make it worse. You’re too far in at that point so have to start paying higher rates for the people who know something. And doubling or tripling your budget. And giving your vendor all your IP. At that point the “vendor” is now known as a “partner”. If they’ve taken over your IT department then they are a “strategic partner”.
5. Vendors sleep with vendors. Don’t even get me started on that one.
Interesting.
I always think of complexity in terms of what I understand Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem to mean. The more one tries to create an axiomaticly complete system of software, the more likely that software is flawed in significant ways. You’ve shown the problem is that the systems of assembled axioms are from nearly incompatible paradimes. Sounds like fun.
However, I have a mechanical engineering degree, so I’m a bit direct in my thinking.
Uncle Dave:
When I think of sophisticated software from the early 90s, I have in mind systems like the “Sabre® Global Distribution System” or the large hard-realtime systems created by some of my employeers.
Browsers received a lot of undue attention, for what they were, IMHO.
I accept you find Andreessen to be great guy, and am sorry my views are incompatible with yours.
What?
IT Rule #1: There is always problem.
IT Rule #2: No matter what you’re thinking, it’s always a people problem.