HP's difficulty gaining traction in the mobile device sector and its sudden decision to get out of the business say quite a bit about the challenges and pitfalls companies face in trying to compete in the crowded mobile market.
Hewlett-Packard's
precipitous decision to get out of the mobile business seemed highly
improbably little more than a week ago. Now the company says that dumping it
mobile and consumer PC businesses is an absolute necessity to get the company
back on a healthy growth track. Whether these moves will succeed remains to be
seen.
As
a result, HP is discontinuing its TouchPad tablet, ditching its smartphones,
and trying to refocus its business around software, enterprise servers, storage
and IT services.
However,
HP's troubles in the mobile business do say quite a bit about what HP and its
competitors are currently facing. It appears now that the mobile market is easy
to join but
extremely difficult to succeed in. The companies that have a sound market
strategy and innovative ideas are far more likely to thrive than those that
don't.
Unfortunately
for HP, its failure in the mobile business has become a case study of what can
happen when companies try to break into a market in which the leaders are firmly
entrenched and the new comers are offering anything less than groundbreaking
technology.
Read
on to learn more:
1. Not being Apple is a killer
The
worst thing that
a company joining the mobile market can be is a firm other than Apple. The
fact is the majority of consumers in the marketplace want to get their hands on
an iPhone or iPad. The other device makers are left to pick up the scraps. HP's
troubles were far-reaching, but not having the Apple brand on its products
meant it was starting from a steep disadvantage from Day One. Any other concern
contemplating getting into this market should remember that.
2. Not using Android is a mistake
Unfortunately
for HP, it believed that it could offer both the hardware and software in its
smartphones and tablets and be successful. In today's mobile space, consumers
are recognizing two platforms: iOS and Android. All others, including BlackBerry
OS, are distant also-rans. By not offering Android in its products, HP was
putting itself at a disadvantage that it couldn't overcome. Customers didn't
know webOS, and they didn't care to learn about it. May that be a warning for
all other companies thinking about developing some new mobile OS platform.
3. Enterprise users are loyal
HP
quickly learned that enterprise users are incredibly loyal to the products
they've been using for years. Even now, the majority of IT decision-makers
would rather put a BlackBerry in the hands of employees instead of any other
product. On the other hand, HP's webOS platform and hardware weren't even
considered by the enterprise, leaving it with only the consumer market to
compete in.
4. Consumers have a one-track mind
That
said, HP wasn't able to capitalize on consumers for one major reason: They have
a one-track mind. Today's consumers want devices with prominent touch screens,
tons of third-party applications and an operating system that they know they
can trust. Consumers might have been able to trust webOS, but in the smartphone
space especially, they were disappointed by the rest of HP's offerings. That
held HP back, and this factor could hold back any other company that's hoping
to make it big in the mobile market.
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