HP’s Eric Cador said in an interview this week:
“In the PC world, with fewer ways of differentiating HP’s products from our competitors, we became number one; in the tablet world we’re going to become better than number one. We call it number one plus.”
If you’re going to trash talk your competition, you may want to start competing with them first. At least, that’s what common sense should tell you. HP is not the only company that has been guilty of this recently. Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer trash talked the iPhone in 2007 when it was released, claiming that it had no chance whatsoever of gaining any significant market share. It’s kind of hilarious how history has proved him to be absolutely wrong.
Many companies use marketing propaganda whenever they speak publicly, but when you state specifics about a product before it’s released, that’s considered quantifiable marketing propaganda. And when something is quantifiable, it can be measured. When something can be measured, you can be proven wrong. When companies release statements like this, they’re typically proven wrong almost instantly by the press, and mocked by everyone else. This is just a very unwise thing for HP to have said.
The iPad isn’t just at the front of the pack in the tablet market. It is the tablet market. And all the statistics resound that message loudly and clearly. There is not a significant competitor that can hold a torch to the iPad’s success right now, and HP is claiming that they can beat the iPad on their first try — a claim so far from likely that it’s laughable.
Not only is the iPad leading the pack in the tablet industry, it’s actually eating away at the PC industry as well. Best Buy reported last quarter that sales of PC laptops had dropped by over 50% since the iPad’s release, with iPad sales far surpassing all industry analyst expectations. The Motorola Xoom has sold a total of over a quarter of a million units since it’s release, which is pretty impressive, until you compare it to the over 45 million iPads Apple is expected to sell this year alone, or the fact that Apple sold more iPads than that on the iPad 2′s release day alone.
We would absolutely love to see a credible competitor to the iPad, and the HP TouchPad looks like it will be a fantastic product — one that may even be reasonably good competition for the iPad. Competition is great for the industry, and it drives progress forward. It just does not make sense to make such flamboyant claims about a product months before its scheduled release, and expect to be taken seriously. HP would be wise to focus more on making the TouchPad a great product, and to focus less on mocking their fiercest competitor. And just in case Eric Cador is bad at math, number 1 plus one equals number 2.
I am currently using the HP Slate 500. I love it!
Waiting for the Touchpads to come out, I think it will give some serious competition.
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Likelooks like the quote actually read "number one plus" and in most circles that implies an improvement, just saying
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LikeIm a supporter of hp I wanna see what this tabelt is all about I'm done with the iPad. Wish I never bought it never knew apple did now support flash. Which is a key thing for me.
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LikeLooks like the problem is that you're an uninformed consumer, rather than that Apple did anything wrong.
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LikeCompletely understandable.
The fact that iOS devices don't support Flash and never have, is so easy to miss among the collective screams that the iPhone and iPad are going to fail because of the absence of Flash
It's not like anybody ever mentioned this.
Oh wait, some people have, people like John Dowdell, the neck beards, John Dowdell, the opentards, John Dowdell, parts of Google's Android team, John Dowdell, the carriers, John Dowdell, the other phone manufacturers… the list goes on.
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LikeTrust me when I tell you that 15 minutes with a Flash-enabled tablet will have you wondering whether it's too late to get your iPad back.
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Like"And just in case Eric Cador is bad at math, number 1 plus one equals number 2." ba-zing Justin, very nice. :)
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LikeHaving seen demos of this thing since February, I'm really not convinced that it will have any more traction than the Xoom, or PlayBook. The OS seems more tactical and less organic, and for me, that is what has sold iOS since day 1.
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LikeHave you even played with the Xoom in person?? It's complete garbage- the touchscreen isn't nearly as sensitive as the iPad, it's ultra laggy, and the scrolling is as smooth as nails on a chalkboard. The product is terrible. The PlayBook looks okay from videos, but it's too small to be a major competitor, also, its a complete rip-off of webOS- stolen gesture idea, stolen card/multi-tasking idea. WebOS is, in fact, extremely organic. More oragnic than iOS in my opinion- with webOS, there more natural gestures- if you want to move to the next app, you swipe to it, instead of iOS's retarded hold down the home button and wait for icons to appear. Also with iOS, all your apps stay open until you go through the dumb process of holding the home button, and X'ing all of your apps...how stone age is that?? WebOS's throw the card away feature is incredibly intuitive, organic, and most importantly, simpler.
These are very bold statements made, however, HP has the firepower to be a legit competition to the iPad if they market it correctly and partner with the right people to get the product to the consumers (which, it looks like they are already doing with Best Buy and Walmart).
Time will tell if this will catch on, however, the TouchPad looks really good so far.
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LikeI'm not super impressed by this article.
Nobody realistically believes that the TouchPad is going to pound out the iPad, but it's a competitor with a much-lauded OS (http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/19/webos-2-0-revie...) and potentially strong hardware. Many of the problems that exist with Android and Windows 7 for Phone don't exist on WebOS (though WebOS is very light on apps). Never the less, the product is not a complete write-off, especially not before it's released.
This leads me to Eric Cador's clumsy, almost self-conscious claim chowder: That the TouchPad will beat the iPad and become "number one plus" (facepalm). Despite his nerdy, corny assertion of confidence, what's he doing wrong? He's saying that HP's product is going to beat the competition. There's nothing really unusual about someone making that claim (as opposed to RIM, who says their product has beaten the competition *before* it's released).
What, instead, should he say? "I don't know if the TouchPad is going to beat the competition. I guess we'll wait and see when it comes out. Gosh, I sure hope it does well."? That's a bit unrealistic (even Steve Jobs doesn't talk like that). He's just promoting his product and trying to create interest. We all know it's not going to steal the iPad's thunder, but are we trying to berate and belittle him for doing anything except admitting failure before the product his the shelves?
I also think this: "number 1 plus one equals number 2" was sort of childish. That's a misquote, and it smacks of a desperation to belittle someone rather than an interest in showing him and HP as they are.
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