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HP Partnership With Apple's Beats Officially Ends as HP Moves on to Bang & Olufsen
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Does anyone really think that there is anything of quality going into HP laptops? This is actually more bad for B&O than it is good for HP. Now they're going to be associated with cheap, plastic computers.
No one is going to look at a B&O product and say, "you know what, i'm not going to buy this because HP laptops use them"
People will however look at a HP laptop equipped with B&O as added value.
B&O in an HP does not devalue B&O
I don't think there is anything wrong with my 17" 2010 hp elite book. Even the gpu is user upgradable. its a hell of a workstation imo. It just doesn't have battery life. But that's a windows problem.
All of our servers are hp proliants, but those aren't laptops.
Hp makes some quality products
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I'm laughing at all the suggestions that Apple should have purchased B&O instead of Beats. Thankfully, none of you are in charge of Apple.
Let's see, either buy the top selling brand of headphones, along with a popular streaming service, high margins, high marketshare, and an executive team with great connections OR a company who has declined so much that it's stock sits at $7 when it used to be $50 only 7 years ago and lost $300 million in revenue between 2008 and 2009. A company that is in such straits that it issued a profit warning in 2014 and recently said it would entertain offers from it's competitors.
Buy company with hot products and great margin OR buy company with niche products, declining revenue and stock price, and a great big ole debt load.
Yep, I would go with B&O.
B&O makes some great products, no doubt. They also have a great reputation. Unfortunately, that reputation doesn't translate into sales. Apple acquired a company that has high sales, high profit, high marketshare, and high brand name recognition. Yeah, that was dumb.
Let's see, either buy the top selling brand of headphones, along with a popular streaming service, high margins, high marketshare, and an executive team with great connections OR a company who has declined so much that it's stock sits at $7 when it used to be $50 only 7 years ago and lost $300 million in revenue between 2008 and 2009. A company that is in such straits that it issued a profit warning in 2014 and recently said it would entertain offers from it's competitors.
Buy company with hot products and great margin OR buy company with niche products, declining revenue and stock price, and a great big ole debt load.
Yep, I would go with B&O.
B&O makes some great products, no doubt. They also have a great reputation. Unfortunately, that reputation doesn't translate into sales. Apple acquired a company that has high sales, high profit, high marketshare, and high brand name recognition. Yeah, that was dumb.
There was never anything cool about HP anyway
Back in the 70's and 80's there was. HP made really high quality stuff back then. The joke used to be that HP stood for "High Prices" - but they were worth every penny.
Now HP just makes "me too" cheap rubbish. They completely abandoned their heritage.
This is great for HP, they will have fantastic speaker systems as a result. Shame Apple went for the fashion approach as opposed to the quality one.
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No, pro's use Shure
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No, pro's use Shure
I'm laughing at all the suggestions that Apple should have purchased B&O instead of Beats. Thankfully, none of you are in charge of Apple.
Let's see, either buy the top selling brand of headphones, along with a popular streaming service, high margins, high marketshare, and an executive team with great connections OR a company who has declined so much that it's stock sits at $7 when it used to be $50 only 7 years ago and lost $300 million in revenue between 2008 and 2009. A company that is in such straits that it issued a profit warning in 2014 and recently said it would entertain offers from it's competitors.
Buy company with hot products and great margin OR buy company with niche products, declining revenue and stock price, and a great big ole debt load.
Yep, I would go with B&O.
The rule when buying shares (and pretty much anything) is: "Buy low, sell high". Depressed share price = buying opportunity.
And B&O have always had a very deep and sincere product design philosophy - much like Apple now. Beats, OTOH, is more about superficial marketing veneer. Not at all Apple.
That said, you do make a good point about the streaming service. Hopefully that's all Apple really wanted out of the acquisition?
Beats are really low quality. One must be deaf to find that good. B&O tops Beats a million times. Beats only sell because of the hype.
Or I'm just writing that because I'm from Denmark...
Anyway. B&O and Apple would be a dream team. 2 Products known for "quality" and being a statement to own.
Yeah, it's because you're from Denmark. Originally, Beats were just known for their heavy emphasis on bass, and cool styling. But more recently, they've gotten some good reviews in audio magazines.
I've never found B&O to have high quality sound.
Check out the B&O H6 headphones. A bit pricey but they sound fantastic. Beats are mediocre cans, brilliantly marketed.
I'm laughing at all the suggestions that Apple should have purchased B&O instead of Beats. Thankfully, none of you are in charge of Apple.
Let's see, either buy the top selling brand of headphones, along with a popular streaming service, high margins, high marketshare, and an executive team with great connections OR a company who has declined so much that it's stock sits at $7 when it used to be $50 only 7 years ago and lost $300 million in revenue between 2008 and 2009. A company that is in such straits that it issued a profit warning in 2014 and recently said it would entertain offers from it's competitors.
Buy company with hot products and great margin OR buy company with niche products, declining revenue and stock price, and a great big ole debt load.
Yep, I would go with B&O.
I agree. Plus, I think B&O will be selling themselves out to whomever due to cash flow issues and mounting and debt.
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0KE13620150105?irpc=932
I'm laughing at all the suggestions that Apple should have purchased B&O instead of Beats. Thankfully, none of you are in charge of Apple.
Let's see, either buy the top selling brand of headphones, along with a popular streaming service, high margins, high marketshare, and an executive team with great connections OR a company who has declined so much that it's stock sits at $7 when it used to be $50 only 7 years ago and lost $300 million in revenue between 2008 and 2009. A company that is in such straits that it issued a profit warning in 2014 and recently said it would entertain offers from it's competitors.
Buy company with hot products and great margin OR buy company with niche products, declining revenue and stock price, and a great big ole debt load.
Yep, I would go with B&O.
You clearly know nothing about business. When a company has a low share price is exactly when you should buy it. Apple could have acquired Bang & Olufsen for considerably less than they over paid for Beats. They would be buying B&O's highly rated expertise in audio and video products. They could use that and rebrand it as Apple products.
Just think about this - HP wants to put B+O tech into its laptop speakers.
Um, how?
Just like the Beats partnership, this is much less to do with audio quality (ignoring, for the moment, the argument that Beats are of low quality) and more to do with pure branding.
A crap sound chip on a HP laptop is still a crap sound chip whether it has a B+O logo on it or not. You can't get B+O quality out of some laptop speakers.
Um, how?
Just like the Beats partnership, this is much less to do with audio quality (ignoring, for the moment, the argument that Beats are of low quality) and more to do with pure branding.
A crap sound chip on a HP laptop is still a crap sound chip whether it has a B+O logo on it or not. You can't get B+O quality out of some laptop speakers.
Well hopefully the rumours that circulated shortly after the acquisition that Apple will be ramping up the quality of Beats headphones is true, because yeah, everyone including Dr Dre and Tim Cook are 100% aware that Beats are very low quality headphones for their price.
Great design, great marketing, and those are admirable things, but presumably as Apple users we are willing to pay a little more for things in order to get superior craftsmanship and that's absolutely not the case with current Beats headphones, whereas it absolutely is the case for B&O.
The headphone side of Beats is probably not why Apple bought them but so long as they have that too, they might as well ensure they're decent, I doubt it would even affect margins that much.
Great design, great marketing, and those are admirable things, but presumably as Apple users we are willing to pay a little more for things in order to get superior craftsmanship and that's absolutely not the case with current Beats headphones, whereas it absolutely is the case for B&O.
The headphone side of Beats is probably not why Apple bought them but so long as they have that too, they might as well ensure they're decent, I doubt it would even affect margins that much.
No kidding!.. I always felt that B & O would have been a much better fit for Apple than the tacky Beats outfit.
HP/ Beats and Apple/ B&O do seem like natural pairings on a scale of Mediocrity/Hype <---> Quality/Performance. Some things just seem to pair better, like peanut butter and chocolate. But instead, the pairings ended up like peanut butter and squid :O=
I'm laughing at all the suggestions that Apple should have purchased B&O instead of Beats. Thankfully, none of you are in charge of Apple.
Let's see, either buy the top selling brand of headphones, along with a popular streaming service, high margins, high marketshare, and an executive team with great connections OR a company who has declined so much that it's stock sits at $7 when it used to be $50 only 7 years ago and lost $300 million in revenue between 2008 and 2009. A company that is in such straits that it issued a profit warning in 2014 and recently said it would entertain offers from it's competitors.
Buy company with hot products and great margin OR buy company with niche products, declining revenue and stock price, and a great big ole debt load.
Yep, I would go with B&O.
I agree with most of what you're saying... Except the popular streaming service.
From a purely business perspective, Beats was the better move. From a quality perspective, not so much.
Do you remember those HP-branded iPods which they used to have?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod%2BHP
Which Apple seems rather distracted with lately...it seems to be clouding their judgement on many fronts...
Wow, a future business school case study on how to tarnish your brand in one press release.
B&O has always been more about styling than sound, but they've marketed that style upscale. HP is a decidedly downscale brand these days.
First, it will be a separate part of the company that serves HP, then that division will grow, then there will be an executive rotation that brings the head of the computer products division to lead their traditional product line where he'll use his experience in making "quality products for a mass market" to drive efficiency improvements...
B&O has always been more about styling than sound, but they've marketed that style upscale. HP is a decidedly downscale brand these days.
First, it will be a separate part of the company that serves HP, then that division will grow, then there will be an executive rotation that brings the head of the computer products division to lead their traditional product line where he'll use his experience in making "quality products for a mass market" to drive efficiency improvements...
Never owned a HP laptop, but agree on HP's quality. Before I built my recent Linux PC, owned two HP desktops that lasted about 10 years with only a minor graphic card issue in one of them.
Probably a 1/5 of the price of Mac Pro with similar peformance