HP commissions a new logo, do they have the balls to execute?
Posted Wednesday, December 14, 2011 at 10:47 pm by Jason Cartwright
The largest PC manufacturer in the world may be about to go through a rebranding. The centerpiece to the new design is a new logo, showing off simplistic lines to represent HP brand. Right now the design hasn’t been implemented and to be honest, it may never, what we do know is that HP are considering it.
The companies logo has largely remained the same since its origins way back in the early 1940s, so a change would be big news. Changing logos at a company of this scale would have massive financial costs. The thought of changing at this scale seems a monumental task, everything from websites, business cards, banners, advertising, apparel and most significantly, the production line that stamps that logo on computers would need to change.
The company entrusted to design the HP of tomorrow is Moving Brands, who have worked with ShowYou, Ovi, MTV, Nokia and many more. Moving brand has been chosen as the lead agency to set a creative vision for the HP brand. The vision was to transform the world’s biggest technology company into the world’s most powerful brand. Ambitious.
“If you step back and think about when the transformation project began in 2008, so many of our people did not understand HP, and were falling into the same trap of our customers: thinking of ourselves as commodity, or just hardware, and not seeing HP as relevant.” said Greg Johnson, HP’s Global Creative Director of Brand Strategy and Experience Design.
The logo progression pictured about includes the original logo (very similar to the current version), the 2011 proposed new logo and a far out distant projection for 2021 which you feel free to disregard. Check out some of the potential branding videos to see what a rebadged HP would look like.
With a rebranding, it has to be more than just an expense, to be a true vision for the future and change of company direction a lot more needs to happen than a new logo. Changing culture and the way people, from employees to customers perceive your brand takes a visionary. It takes someone to formulate a successful direction for the future that people can get on-board with, that sets you apart and makes people not just use, but fall in love with your brand. Change is hard and often expensive, but with the right people, budget and relentlessness, it can be done.
HP, are you ready for a new HP?
More @ Moving Brands via UnderConsideration
Thousands buy discontinued HP TouchPad for $98
Posted Monday, August 22, 2011 at 6:12 pm by Jason Cartwright
Image credit: liza.id.au
Last week HP announced they were discontinuing their failed tablet, the TouchPad. Exclusive Australian retailer Harvey Norman immediately pulled it from shelves and their website. As other countries slashed TouchPad price to run out existing stock, Australian’s began to question why the same wasn’t being done here.
This afternoon at 2pm, Harvey Norman did just that. They dropped the price from $598 to just $98 for the 16GB model. As news spread quickly on twitter, cues of people began forming at stores around the country. While Harvey Norman posted that there was a string 1 per customer limit in place, I know of a number of customers who were able to bag 2 by choosing a 16GB and a 32GB model.
Naturally stock didn’t last long with most stores around Australia being sold out of HP TouchPads within an hour. Apparently buying a discontinued product and dead ecosystem didn’t concern people. Most gadgets we purchase are upgraded and improve over time with iterations of software and additional applications. The HP TouchPad however is as good today as it will ever be.
Naturally with a device that runs a discontinued OS, owners begin to look to ports of other mobile platforms to solve the issue. Conversation around an Android port to the HP TouchPad has already begun. So did you manage tackle the crowds and grab one this afternoon ? If so, are you happy, or regretting your decision ?
I was able to get a quick hands-on with the HP TouchPad (thanks Ben), after the review unit was cancelled. My initial impression was positive for the TouchPad, with one of the most critical factors, touchscreen responsiveness, being on-par with the iPad. The display was also good quality, but weight was notably heavier than the iPad. By far the biggest issue will be application support, but with more of the web going HTML5, then you maybe able to get by. For $98 its clearly a good deal, personally I couldn’t find a real need for it, so kept the cash in the pocket for something I actually need, not just want.
There’s been some discussion online about whether HP should have killed off the TouchPad given the ‘demand’. Let me make this very clear. The HP TouchPad was a failure and sold at a dramatic loss. The only reason people ‘demanded’ it today was the price. On the market for 4 days, only 1200 were sold in Australia, that’s the real demand, not the rush at 2pm today.
It’s a fire sale! Harvey Norman cuts 40% off HP products
Posted Friday, August 19, 2011 at 4:57 pm by Jason Cartwright
Image credit: Flickr
This morning started by rumors that HP, number 1 PC manufacturer in the world, was getting out of the business and moving to enterprise. As the real details emerged the timeframe for ‘evaluating’ the future of the business was said to be 12-18 months. As the day progressed things turned sour.
Harvey Norman, the exclusive Australian retailer for the now discontinued HP TouchPad, entered private discussions with HP. Just hours later radio and TV advertisements are now on-air confirming Harvey Norman are slashing HP products by 40% Australia-wide. There’s no waiting for 12-18 months, Harvey Norman are clearly cutting ties.. NOW!.
Laptops, Desktops, All-in-ones and multi-function printers are all included with the sale running from now till Sunday.
Update
Harvey Norman’s discount brand Joyce Maine are now also advertising the 40% off HP Products. The two images below are photos from TV ads, which are running thick and fast. It’s impressive how fast HN can turn these around.
The Harvey Norman website has now been update to reflect the sale. More information @ Harvey Norman.
HP pivots company, focus on enterprise and cloud services
Posted Friday, August 19, 2011 at 7:43 am by Jason Cartwright
HP have just dropped a bombshell, they are pivoting the company in a big way. During their quarterly earnings call, HP said “These are tough decisions. There are four elements to the path."
- "First, sector trends impacting PSG as consumers change habits. The tablet effect is real, and sales of the TouchPad are not meeting expectations."
- "Second, our enterprise service business needs to be reshaped."
- "Third, there are tactical issues that we are facing. We are confronting the challenge of the Japanese earthquake on our printer business."
- "Fourth, we must address the needs of our customers, which we are accelerating with the acquisition of autonomy."
The new direction from HP means they will focus on enterprise and infrastructure, namely cloud technologies. This morning they also announced a new Vice President of Enterprise Services which will report directly to CEO Leo Apotheker. With this focus on enterprise, it seems HP is destined to become the next IBM – a company that’s important, but not in the consumer eye.
Many are reporting this morning that the PC division is being killed off, that’s not actually true right now. They are evaluating a range of options including a spinoff, which is expected to take 12-18 months to complete. While its certainly a strong indication the company’s focus is moving from consumer to enterprise, the largest PC manufacturer is not as of today pulling the plug.
News for the Mobile division isn’t good, HP management we brutally honest saying “Due to market conditions, continuing to execute in this market space no longer makes sense for HP’s shareholders." Essentially they tried to compete with Apple and Google and lost. This means they are killing off the HP Touchpad and mobile devices which run webOS. The mobile operating system they acquired from Palm. Device shutdown will happen in Q4 2011.
Update
HP will no longer make webOS devices, but will continue to develop it and licence it. “We are not walking away from webOS.” says webOS GBU VP Stephen DeWitt. This move seems the most diss-jointed of the whole announcement. If HP itself couldn’t make it work, what would make a 3rd party manufacturer take it on?
HP are also making an acquisition as part of this new direction, enterprise software and search company Autonomy will be swallowed up be the end of 2011.
The one part of the business HP are keeping hold of is Printers. While we would all like to think printing is going away, the reality is, businesses print.. a lot and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. While not legal to do it, the printer business is pretty much a licence to print money with relatively low hardware costs and premium renewables.
This dramatic change in direction appears to have come by surprise with HP sending out TouchPad review units as recently as yesterday and recently telling ThisIsMyNext editor Joshua Topolsky they are committed to tablets.
More info @ http://live.thisismynext.com/Event/HP_Q3_2011_earnings_call
HP TouchPad announced, runs flash, front facing camera
Posted Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 5:15 am by Jason CartwrightAt their ‘Think Beyond’ event in San Francisco, HP have announced their competitor to Apple’s iPad. The spec sheet for the HP TouchPad runs very similar to the iPad, with a couple of key differences. It runs Adobe’s Flash (no mention of which version) and has a front facing camera for video calls.
Tech Specs [More info]
Operation System: Web OS 3.0
Display: 9.7-inch XGA capacitive, multitouch screen (1024×768 resolution)
Sesnsors: Light sensor, accelerometer, compass and gyroscope, GPS in 3G version only.
Storage: 16GB or 32GB internal
Battery: 6300 mAh battery (not sure what this translates to in real world usage hours)
Weight: 740 grams
Connectivity: Wifi-only, 3G and 4G models coming
So while there are a lot things the same, there’s also some important differences. Like the fact it has a microUSB connector (USB 2.0) and a Dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon running at 1.2 Ghz. Then there’s HP’s touchstone, which allows you to place the TouchPad on the touchstone and commence charging, no cables required.
Availability is expected this summer in the US, now specific word on international availability at this stage. Also yet to be announced is price, which is probably the single determining factor as to wether the TouchPad is a success. The other is the question of what Apple has in store with the iPad 2.
Update – Check out the video.
HP also killed off the Palm brand, by announcing a two new smart phones, the HP Pre3 and HP Veer, both of which work well with the TouchPad.
HP pulls the plug on MediaSmart Home Servers
Posted Wednesday, December 1, 2010 at 6:09 pm by Jason Cartwright
Well things just keep getting worse for at the next version of Windows Home Server – Vail. Today, Microsoft’s biggest hardware partner for WHS has decided to pull the pin on there MediaSmart Servers. It’s a damn shame too, because they really solved an bunch of issues facing a modern day home.
Bill Gates vision was to have a computer in every home. Well in 2010 most homes have many more than one computer, lots of data that needs to be backed up and streamed around the home. MediaSmart servers running WHS provided the perfect solution to this.
With Vail due early 2011, I was planning on updating to a new MediaSmart running Vail enabling even more features. Then passing my existing EX490 to my parents. Unfortunately the decision today from HP ends that plan. I’ll be hanging on to my MediaSmart, it just got a whole lot more valuable.
It’s hard not to join to dots between HP’s decision to pull out with the announcement last week that Microsoft was killing Drive Extenders in Vail. Drive Extenders is the technology that allowed us to throw drives of any size together which combined to make one simple pool of storage. This sparked massive outrage online, many calling it the death of WHS. Apparently HP thought so too. While WHS has many great features, this was certainly a big one.
More @ Windows Team Blog
