Action in the Business World

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

The breaking news a few days ago about Google wanting into the PC business followed today by this, made me think this deserves its own thread.

I've often wondered whether HP made a plugged nickel on its consumer PC line. I've had two of their machines and they were built like Fort Knox. I often didn't agree with some of the silly things they did, like removing memory sockets, but overall their machines were very satisfactory. I ran both of them into the ground which took over five years each.

HP being "the world's largest computer maker" surprised the daylights out of me. What ever happened to Snow White (IBM)? What is the International Brotherhood of Magicians doing these days besides playing chess?

[lloydyboy232 12]

Sorry Anonymoose But I Am The Worlds Largest manufacturer of computer MUAHAHAHAHA

[jacksunny 741]

:|

[Jelendria 3]

IBM no longer makes personal computers.

[Easy Bakes 253]

The breaking news a few days ago about Google wanting into the PC business followed today by this, made me think this deserves its own thread.

I've often wondered whether HP made a plugged nickel on its consumer PC line. I've had two of their machines and they were built like Fort Knox. I often didn't agree with some of the silly things they did, like removing memory sockets, but overall their machines were very satisfactory. I ran both of them into the ground which took over five years each.

HP being "the world's largest computer maker" surprised the daylights out of me. What ever happened to Snow White (IBM)? What is the International Brotherhood of Magicians doing these days besides playing chess?

HP makes money sellig Ink.

not sure what IBM has been up to lately.

[Barbarossa 51]

.

  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[Duke87 1,070]

Which is weird because everyone used to think of HP as a printer manufacturer. When they started making computers it seemed odd at first.

But such is the nature of the IT industry... it grows and changes so fast that companies working in it also grow and change fairly fast.

[Sim shady 12]

Want to know what IBM is doing now?

IBM computer chip mimics the human brain

Scary but exciting!

[Easy Bakes 253]

The breaking news a few days ago about Google wanting into the PC business followed today by this, made me think this deserves its own thread.

I've often wondered whether HP made a plugged nickel on its consumer PC line. I've had two of their machines and they were built like Fort Knox. I often didn't agree with some of the silly things they did, like removing memory sockets, but overall their machines were very satisfactory. I ran both of them into the ground which took over five years each.

HP being "the world's largest computer maker" surprised the daylights out of me. What ever happened to Snow White (IBM)? What is the International Brotherhood of Magicians doing these days besides playing chess?

wonder if thier getting out ahead of the crowd. as PCs may soon be a thing of the past when the Ipad type devices become more normal.

  Edited August 19, 2011 by Easy Bakes  

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Other than a few silly responses, this is turning out to be a good discussion.

People did miss the fact that HP is a very large manufacturer of medical devices such as patient monitors, etc. I suspect their analog business has shoved out the PC racket, and they want to exfoliate it to get more money for development of their other lines. I doubt the printer business is part of the deal with Google. They make some flat bed plotters that would amaze you.

And thanks for the links folks. Snow White is still up to more research than sales. They are an incredibly rich outfit. When they first brought out the PC it shook the computing world to its roots, but they divested that fairly quickly retaining only the office suite and other software, and the patents. Look what has happened to the humble Intel 8080 processor. One of the mainframes I used to work with had a pair of them driving the console.

To the best of my knowledge, IBM has only lost one patent fight. The one with CDC put paid to their 7000 line of main frames. The System/360 was the result of that, and when it was first brought out, its operating system was a shambles. One of the nice things about the 360/25 at least, is you could change the language firmware. At university of Waterloo we had one whose native (assembler) language was APL. It had a writable firmware disk. (Ah! Lukashevsky strings. What a neat way to write code.)

Anyway, these days, you really can't tell the players without a program.

  Edited August 19, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[jacksunny 741]

HP has a point, the PC era is coming to an end.

Although I don't exactly understand why they are discontinuing the WebOS and tablet operations. The PC era may be ending, but the tablet/smartphone era is only beginning. Apparently it was due to a lack of sales, but every company (except Apple) is complaining about that because there is such a variety to choose from.

It seems HP is trying to become Microsoft.

[Ion_Cannon 677]

PC era ending? not really. Yes smartphone markets are huge and they will probably by the largest growth areas in the coming years but no matter how good tech becomes there will always be alot of things a PC can just do better, and the same applies to tablets. I mean can you imagine playing actual games (As in not gimmicky timewasters) on a phones tiny screen? it would be absolutely horrible and the same would apply with a tablet, not so much a problem of the screen than that of neck strain. I still think the iPad is a useless product which apple have convinced people they need to have, despite it not really filling any useful purpose.

Likewise can you imagine having to model or code or do something that actually requires a large input of time, on a smartphone? It just isn't going to happen.

Or hey, maybe I'm just stuck in my ways and refuse to move along to the next thing

  Edited August 19, 2011 by Ion_Cannon  

[hym 358]

PC era ending? not really.

HP and Dell are both saying that the era of PC dominance is coming to a close. Considering they are the first and second largest manufacturers in the world, I think they have a fairly good handle on where the market is moving.

[Easy Bakes 253]

PC's are still very much eaiser to use then tablets and smart phones and untill a viable and easy to carry hand held with a screen bigger then 6 inches [mabey some sort of monitor that folds out to 20 inches] with a full keyboard is created then the PC will die.

there is so much more you can do on a PC/laptop with a full sized screen/montior then you can do on a carry around device. ever try to look a spread sheet on a 3 inch screen?

  Edited August 19, 2011 by Easy Bakes  

[Jelendria 3]

PCs will still be around for a long time but PC dominance is slipping fast because dominance means they are sold the most. When more smartphones are sold than PC's, then the dominance has been lost, same goes with tablets. If both smartphones and tablets vastly outnumber PC's, then it is safe to say, the PC dominant era has ended. Laptops are already more common than tower/desktop designs. Tower/desktop models have more performance for their price and in some ways are easier to use so those won't go away altogether very quickly but will not be the primary device anymore in a short amount of time.

[x493x 446]

Everybody wants portability, on the go, now. A PC can't do that so the PC trend in shrinking.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I think that once the love of the gadgetry is over and the market is saturated, things will settle down. With the current market downturns and the expected credit tightening, I think all the fancy phone technology is soon going to be in trouble. As prices for these services increase due to higher operating costs due to tightening credit, thing are going to slump. HP has made a good move back into its core business.

Most of this smart phone is being driving by the teen-aged love-my-phone demographic because it gives them a feeling of freedom they've never really had before. We are a phoning society. Last time I looked, Canada made more phone calls per capita than any other country.

However, while the PC market may die down, the Personal Work Station will remain. Can you imagine sitting in front of even a laptop with that tiny keyboard doing information work all day with those tiny screens? Tablets and such are toys. You can't do serious work on them because they are not set up for it. Imagine trying to render a large map for SC4 on your phone?!

Most people's hands are far to large to fit on those baby keyboards, even on laptops. What touch typist want to learn about the second and third shifts? Offices will not tolerate any such expense to convert their existing people to new keyboards. Look what happened to the highly efficient Dvorák key layout.

Like many old mules, I am not flexible enough to want to bother with new phone technology, nor will I put up with an electronic leash. So the world of phone wonders may pass me by. You know, I don't care.

  Edited August 19, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[jacksunny 741]

A lot of interesting stuff has been happening...

HP has decided to lower the price of the TouchPad to get rid of them. The 16GB TouchPad will be $100 and the 32GB will be $150. This is in CANADA ONLY. My link

I personally will probably not be buying one as there is going to be little to no support from HP as they are "discontinuing" it. It is a very good deal though. I checked bestbuy.ca this morning, and it seems they are sold out online, so clearly people want them.

Microsoft has taken advantage of the webOS shut-down and given all WebOS developers free windows phones and dev tools. My link

And Microsoft also claims that the PC "isn't even middle-aged yet." My link

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

MS has a good point. The portable telephone toys are a different market. No one in his right mind would give up his laptop or desktop to only have a smart phone or touch screen device. The future of these toys may be as auxiliary stations to PC's.

I expect the next big push for PC's in the home will be to automate the household including security. A lot of this exists now, but needs a dedicated machine. Being able to do this with a background task is the next jump.

Anecdote:

In about 1967 I was standing in the datacentre at GE Toronto watching some stuff come off the very large, noisy line printer. One of the operators remarked that this was the very latest thing, and I responded, "Son, in a few years this printer will have a little box attached to it that will replace everything else in the room." Happened, too.

However, the printer shrank to the size of a bread box.

  Edited August 20, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[Ion_Cannon 677]

Exactly, smartphones have their uses, such as checking email and work correspondence but the majority of things they can do are really gimmicks or programs designed to waste time. You can't really do anything constructive on them. They make life easier, and this is what alot of tech does, but it doesn't really let you do anything you couldn't have done anyway. For example sat navs, wouldn't be needed if people could be bothered to read maps.

Tablet PC's are in the same marketing gimmick market as smartphones, It's not practical to use one as anything more than a tool to browse the web, and I would rather use my PC for that anyway.

The reason IBM/HP got/are getting out of the market is not because PC sales are low, it is because they have a very small margin of profit, so they're focussing on what is profitable - the software. The only "PC" company that makes a large profit off its desktop machines is Apple, because for some inconceivable reason certain people don't mind paying a premium for something that you could actually get for half or less of the price.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Even more interesting is that the Free Software Foundation and others who supply free software are gaining ground slowly. Why would anyone pay for a windows license when Linux runs on nearly any machine?

Why pay Microsoft for a box of bugs?

How is Apple software for quality? I've never used their stuff, but the medical fraternity seems to like it.

If you buy a machine like I did, you can get it naked with just the mobo and the peripherals. I saved the price of windows and the bloatware ($200) some of which went into an extra memory stick.

  Edited August 20, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[Easy Bakes 253]

So when its no longer profitable for anyone to make hardware, who will make the hardware?

Implications

[Duke87 1,070]

However, while the PC market may die down, the Personal Work Station will remain. Can you imagine sitting in front of even a laptop with that tiny keyboard doing information work all day with those tiny screens?

I use a laptop "all day" as my computer at work. My company does not issue desktop PCs to its employees because then we wouldn't be able to easily take our computer out of the office with us if needed. Everyone else who uses theirs mostly in the office has it in a docking station with a separate keyboard and larger monitor, but I've intentionally turned them down. Why? Well, I've been using a laptop as my personal computer since before college, to the point where by now using a desktop feels weird. Especially the keyboard. I prefer the feel of a laptop keyboard.

But yes, using some sort of tablet PC for this purpose would not be possible.

Most people's hands are far to large to fit on those baby keyboards, even on laptops. What touch typist want to learn about the second and third shifts? Offices will not tolerate any such expense to convert their existing people to new keyboards. Look what happened to the highly efficient Dvorák key layout.

Yes, well, this is one of those things where while people with old habits can't be made to change, younger people are more adaptable and take to the new style. I can see where touch typing on a laptop could be difficult. But touch typing hearkens back to a day when people learned how to type by being taught how to use a typewriter. Nowadays kids are teaching themselves how to type. Most people my age do not touch type, but yet can type fast and efficient enough using other means... moreso than proponents of touch typing would have previously considered possible. All a matter of practice and exposure while young... I'm sure today your average fifth grader has handled a keyboard more than your average college graduate from 30 years ago would have handled a typewriter.

And people who have little keypads on their phone learn to type with their thumbs. Which, when you grow up playing video games, probably isn't all that difficult. It's just a game controller with more buttons.

They make life easier, and this is what alot of tech does, but it doesn't really let you do anything you couldn't have done anyway. For example sat navs, wouldn't be needed if people could be bothered to read maps.

Well, in a way, GPS ("sat nav" in the Queen's English) does enable a sort of brainlessness... people don't need to think about where they're going, they just do what the device says.

But at the same time, there are benefits. You can't read a map while driving, but the GPS can give you directions as you drive. You can have road maps for the country and street maps for an area but only with a GPS is it possible to have detailed street maps for everywhere. And no map is going to tell you where the nearest services are.

The reason IBM/HP got/are getting out of the market is not because PC sales are low, it is because they have a very small margin of profit, so they're focussing on what is profitable - the software. The only "PC" company that makes a large profit off its desktop machines is Apple, because for some inconceivable reason certain people don't mind paying a premium for something that you could actually get for half or less of the price.

It's not inconceivable. Yes, you could get a PC for less, but then it wouldn't look as cool. All a matter of fashion (it should be noted that the Mac userbase is disproportionately female). Although, Macs will never capture any significant portion of the corporate market so long as they continue to cost more. And not everyone prefers them for personal use.

PCs will not disappear from use anytime soon, although the shift from desktop to laptop which is already well underway will continue. As it is, desktops are nowadays mostly the realm of gamers who want a really souped up system and nerds who insist on custom building their own computer.

Even more interesting is that the Free Software Foundation and others who supply free software are gaining ground slowly. Why would anyone pay for a windows license when Linux runs on nearly any machine?

Familiarity. Everyone knows Windows and can hit the ground running with it when they buy a new computer. Most people aren't interested in expending the effort to learn Linux. Especially since, for anyone who isn't big into computers, it poses an intimidating image of "that fancy thing that only nerds understand". And indeed, it's tough to jump into if you don't know what you're doing. All the different distros and whatnot.

Besides, you have to get over the inertia of "doesn't the computer automatically come with Windows installed?" It's the same reason people continue to use Internet Exploder: because it's the default and only someone who is technologically inclined will think to change from anything default.

If you buy a machine like I did, you can get it naked with just the mobo and the peripherals. I saved the price of windows and the bloatware ($200) some of which went into an extra memory stick.

And I can understand why you'd do that, but the problem is now you've moved complicated the process and moved into the realm of "some assembly required" - which most people are not capable of handling. People want things to be plug and play, and will be dissatisfied if much more preparation than "take it out of the box, plug it in, and boot it up" is needed.

[Sim shady 12]

I think on a macro level, what HP is doing here is why the Western world's economies are so shaky right now. Growth and profits supersedes sustainability and stability for investors. Time to go learn Mandarin...

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Gaming PCs will be around for a long time! I use laptops and smartphones (and occasionally a tablet) and of course gaming consoles and portable gaming devices but workhorse PCs, home servers, etc are all important. Jelendria and the like are exaggerating.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Rather than copy Duke87's very long post yet again, I just want to answer a few points, so I just opened a new tab for this.

As you say, it is all in what you learn while young. When I was a kid, a portable typewriter weighed about 20 pounds, and had a standard keyboard. My mother was an executive secretary, my father was overseas in WW II, and so I gravitated to her skill set. Not only did I learn to type, but she also taught me Pitman shorthand. When I went to university, I took a custom portable typewriter with me, along with my shorthand skills. Even then (1957) assignments were expected to be typed without typos. Thank heavens for white-out.

Now, of course, PC's being around since 1980 most kids learn to use them before they even hit kindergarten. The QWERTY keyboard is still there, even though it was designed to slow typists down to prevent jamming a mechanical typewriter. The much more efficient Dvorák keyboard just never took off. The French version of this is AZERTY, which says a lot about letter frequency in that language. This whole business of what you are used to is a part of childhood, without doubt.

Thumbing to do texting is interesting. It reminds me of "I know you are a logger and not a dirty bum./I know you are a logger, you stir your coffee with your thumb".

GPS was originally designed for ocean navigation to take a major burden off navigators on the trackless sea. It also has military applications. Subsequent development and popularization has reduced the price of a receiver from several thousand dollars to a few cents and even allowed locations to be transmitted. This is the economy of scale. But for the life of me, I see no practical reason to have one in a telephone except as an electronic leash. Fine if your kid is carrying one, but an invasion of privacy for an adult.

Being retired and needing to purchase a new box of tricks to replace the dying one on my desk, I decided to go whole hog for Linux, which I had had dual booted for about two years. So I purchased a machine from an OEM dealer without his software bundle. It took about an hour to cold boot and install the latest version of UBUNTU on to this machine and about another half-day to add packages that didn't come as default. In order to run SC4, I added wine (a five minute download), and Thunderbird which took slightly longer. I then loaded my saved files from the other machine (off CD), and I was in business without windows nor any of Microsoft's bloat ware.

UBUNTU has full support, and I have actually gone through two system upgrades in the last year. This is like installing a Microsoft service pack. Regular updates are set to be downloaded but not installed. They are downloaded, and I get notified. This allows me to be selective in what I take. And yes, I am a computer professional, but you don't need to be one with UBUNTU. It's all in what you want to be. With the provided unity desktop you can be just a user. You get Libre Office which is a drop in replacement for MS-Office. You get Firefox in place of IE and you get a comprehensive mail client which is something like the Novell office calendar/mailer/scheduler. A chat client is included. In fact, with a little change in app names, you'll be right at home.

The best part of all this is that it is free for the taking. You also get an extra software installer that contains thousands of free packages from games to development suites to engineering suites etc. One add-on everyone should have is the GIMP, which is a drop-in replacement for Photoshop.

The main reason that I moved to Linux in the first place was Vista. I ran it briefly on my old machine, ran the W7 tool and discovered that I was going to have to buy a new machine to run it, and decided that I had paid enough license fees to Microsoft. Let them get rich on the ignorant and lazy.