So wait, they're going to support a platform for which no new devices are being manufactured to run on? It sounds like they're planning to license it, I guess, if they can.
You know, back in the day everybody and his dog was telling Apple to license MacOS (I mean OS 7-9, not OS X). Apple supporters would tirelessly explain that turning MacOS into a commodity OS would make it neither fish nor fowl: It wouldn’t have the reach of Windows nor would it have the seamless integration of an Apple-only product. There was a brief and half-hearted attempt to license it which only cannibalized Apple’s existing sales. Steve killed it the moment he returned as CEO.
Now HP has declared that despite being a dominant manufacturer of PCs, it cannot win in the personal computing business and it has no marketing muscle nor manufacturing chops to succeed and make money in the phone or tablet businesses.
Only everyone talks about how great their OS is. This sounds exactly like Apple when they were all but acquired by NeXT in a reverse takeover. Only instead of doubling down on their manufacturing and marketing like Apple did, they’re exiting the business and licensing their OS. I am not going to predict that they will fail, but I am going to say it will be interesting to see what happens with licensing and to compare it (if only for entertainment purposes) with what happened with Apple.
You know, back in the day everybody and his dog was telling Apple to license MacOS (I mean OS 7-9, not OS X). Apple supporters would tirelessly explain that turning MacOS into a commodity OS would make it neither fish nor fowl: It wouldn’t have the reach of Windows nor would it have the seamless integration of an Apple-only product. There was a brief and half-hearted attempt to license it which only cannibalized Apple’s existing sales. Steve killed it the moment he returned as CEO.
Now HP has declared that despite being a dominant manufacturer of PCs, it cannot win in the personal computing business and it has no marketing muscle nor manufacturing chops to succeed and make money in the phone or tablet businesses.
Only everyone talks about how great their OS is. This sounds exactly like Apple when they were all but acquired by NeXT in a reverse takeover. Only instead of doubling down on their manufacturing and marketing like Apple did, they’re exiting the business and licensing their OS. I am not going to predict that they will fail, but I am going to say it will be interesting to see what happens with licensing and to compare it (if only for entertainment purposes) with what happened with Apple.