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HP Drops iPod Reselling

kingtj said:
Any time a company can get another big company to resell their products for them, it's obviously beneficial, is it not? The objective is always to sell as much of your product as possible.
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Not really. Sometimes the reselling "big company" (e.g., HP) takes such a large margin as to make it not worth it for the manufacturing company. Furthermore, if Apple is already selling at capacity then any sales HP makes actually hurts Apple because Apple has to give up profit margin to HP resulting in less net income from Apple. That is business.
 
"business"

Well, quite true... but I'm assuming that Apple wasn't senseless enough to ask another company to sell a product that they were unable to supply, due to selling at full capacity already!

(And even if they did, one could safely guess that they only did so because they had plans to ramp up production capacity shortly thereafter.)

And to the poster complaining about Apple "trying to keep that 5% or less market share at all costs" - I think you're one of the many people who don't get Apple's entire business model. If Apple wanted, they could cut deals to sell their systems at reduced prices at every Walmart and K-Mart in the country, and even let the "mom and pop" stores in on the action with no restrictions. Unload all the last years' models on pricewatch.com and eBay too! Sure... *then* they'd boost that market share past 5% in a hurry. But what would it accomplish in the long run? Apple would have turned their "Rolls Royce" of computers into just another Ford or Chevy.

It really matters not to Steve Jobs if "the general public" still perceives Apple as a company on the brink of bankruptcy. The fact is, they're not - and won't be if they keep up their list of successes like OS X, the new lines of Macs, the iPods, and so on. The reason for them nearing bankruptcy earlier was previous management that let everything stagnate, and didn't understand that to offer a computer that's a "cut above" the rest, you can't go cutting corners on build quality, expandability, etc. (Think cheezy plastic "Performa" systems too short on video RAM to do true color video at typical resolutions, and no room to add a second hard drive.)


pubwvj said:
Not really. Sometimes the reselling "big company" (e.g., HP) takes such a large margin as to make it not worth it for the manufacturing company. Furthermore, if Apple is already selling at capacity then any sales HP makes actually hurts Apple because Apple has to give up profit margin to HP resulting in less net income from Apple. That is business.
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Lanbrown said:
I had a Dell computer at a company I worked for, I had to put it in and take it out of the docking stations around 20 times each morning in order to get it to boot. I was not the only one with this problem. Dell was clueless as to why.

HP is known for their lak of quality, either hardware or software. Sometimes the hardware is great but the software leaves a lot to be desired.

Gateway, well they are having problems.

IBM, they were pretty rugged machines, I have one now as a company laptop.
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Again, there goes that word "known". Known by who?. HP is the #2 computer manufacturer behind Dell. Obviously, a lot of people don't "know" HP is crap.
Sigh, this is a rumor site.. why do i even bother :).
 
Probably Good

The Pros:
  • No more confusion about supported OSes, or which one is "real"
  • Apple sells more iPods because HP won't have a piece of the pie
  • HP Computers STILL come with iTunes
  • HP Logo was ugly!
The Con:
  • Apple might lose the HP distribution network (If I were Staples, I wouldn't drop a hot product, though)

Overall, a good move for both companies.
 
Trowaman said:
So, how many people were buying Macs? :rolleyes:

I'll watch at THE WOODLANDS STORE IN HOUSTON in 8 hours.

See you guys there.
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I saw two Mac minis and an iBook go out.

I almost bought a refurbished 14" iBook (the older model) they had for $950, but decided not to. Maybe I'll go back later in the week and see what they have.
 
Many of the retailers such as Wal-Mart and the Navy Exchange who originally sold only HP branded ipods are by now selling ipods direct from Apple, in essence cutting the middle-man (HP) out of the loop as HP ipod sales have dropped to less than 5% of total ipod revenue. Many retailers sought to get supplies directly from Apple because HP could'nt deliver ipods fast enough. HP ipods were limited by the number of chips and drives Apple would let HP buy. Once retaliers discovered what a hot seller the ipod was they improved thier supply chain by going to Apple. Those that have still sell HP only ipods now face the decision to drop one of thier hottest selling products or seek ipod supplies from Apple.

This is all apart of the Apple master plan.
 
I never considered purchasing an iPod HP before, never gave it a thought. So on my lunch break today, I went to WalMart and bought an iPod Shuffle + HP just for fun. They also had a few HP minis as well, thinking I might just go get one of those too. I figured hey, what the hell. I like oddballs, and now that iPod + HP is no more, it's the perfect opportunity to get one on closeout.
 
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