HP to quit digicam business... sorta
Photography by proxy
It's cake-and-eat-it time. HP wants to get out of the digital camera business without giving up on the brand. It's keen to hear from any manufacturer who fancies making cameras and slapping the HP logo on them for a fee.
HP said it will take a $30m hit during its fourth quarter to cover the move, which it hopes to have made by July 2008, though it only committed itself to selling its own HP cameras "though the holiday season".
HP wants to focus its imaging resources on its Print 2.0 strategy, which is all about improving printing speeds and making it easier to print from websites - though we'd say the latter has more to do with Internet Explorer and co. than HP.
The company also hopes the move will allow it to sell more photo-printers into the home.
COMMENTS
Disgusted with HP
I'd never, ever buy a camera (or anything else) from HP. Not since they moved their sauce production to Holland.
This has got to be one of the better news this week.
Imagine the ceasing flow of H(o)P(eless) cameras to the market. There is no way that this can be negative. It will have an altogether positive effect on the average quality of digital cameras on the market. Finally. :)
//Svein
Missed opportunity
I still have a 4-year old HP850 long-zoom camera with some, then, innovative features. It married a good lens (made by Fuji) with an excellent menu system and general good handling. Since then, HP seemed to lose their initiative and are now, as you put it, trying to have their cake and eat it. Well, they would be if there were any cake, but they have squandered their assets and long since lost the support of any photographers who might once have held them in some regard.
Already done for printers
Sounds like the same policy was already applied to printers and associated software.
HP seems to specialize in printer cr*pware in particular, with HP driver update services taking most of the bandwidth and processor time of any poor old PC set up with it.
Oh and their printers are more poorly built by the day - and the business support is, well, useless as well.
This Is Great Brand Management.
HP. Invent. Rubbish.
