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Comment by dolguldur | Hacker News Reader

It's funny how I and other people see hp and immediately think of bad business practices that lead to a bad experience with the brand.

Relates to the concept that you optimize for what you measure. Not factoring in that screwing over customers will have some impact down the line is also like some sort of debt (as in tech debt). It's like long term brand debt.

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It's a bit depressing too, considering what the HP brand used to be. They used to be synonymous with the some of the most cutting-edge, best engineered test equipment and other electronics gear you could buy. Gear from that era like the legendary HP3458 multimeter still commands very high prices on the used market ($5000 or more if calibrated).

Really that part of HP still exists at that level of quality, but they spun it off as Agilent and later Keysight. Hard to believe they squandered the original brand so completely, though.

I remember attending a talk at my physics student union about 15 years ago, by an alumni who worked at HP. IIRC, he was applying his former astronomy knowledge of dust-particles to make physics simulations for figuring out how toner particles actually behave. It was a lot more interesting than you might think.

It is actually amazing that printers (inkjet, laserjet or the various 3D ones) work as well as they do; there is a ton of really advanced technology under the hood there working at micro- if not nano-scales.

Funny thing is that said HP still exist.

What people are complaining about is the bottom of the barrel consumer products hawked out of very storefront the world over.

I have seen similar sentiments aimed towards Acer, yet i have seen Acer business market laptops survive for ages.

Basically companies like HP and Acer have multiple product ranges with different QA protocols and different margins. Yet people keep buying the cheapest consumer offerings and expect something mil-spec.

There are companies that refuse to dilute their brand or sully their image:

- BMW, Lexus

- Tiffany's

- Rolex

Tech companies just think that they are immune to the market forces that keep other high end brands from skimming off the lower rungs (or at least doing it with their marquee brand).

The examples are just the first ones from different markets that came to mind.

I don't think any of those companies -- all luxury, high-cost/high-profit, consumer brands -- can be compared to a multinational, high volume, consumer- and business-facing IT company.

Perhaps there are better examples?

Apple.

I feel like many tech companies have to support a much broader audience with more varient use cases than the companies you listed.

Luxury watches sold by rollex only have to do a few things very well, and look nice. Some major tech companies are constantly under pressure to not only maintain quality of existing features, but to develop new features to stay competitive (all of this on updated hardware).

Im not defending any 'bad' products that major tech companies put out, but i dont think the companies you listed are very comparable.

> I feel like many tech companies have to support a much broader audience with more varient use cases than the companies you listed.

Perhaps the examples of BMW and Lexus, which were provided by the previous poster, would be a better comparison than Rolex for you? Car companies like those two, which focus their (multiple) brands for different levels of the market rather than diversifying the levels of the market covered by their brand, are a great example of keeping people thinking that one brand is "only for X type of buyer" while maintaining a presence across all corners of the market.

> BMW

Oh, BMW certainly has had its fair share of lemons and... unconventional cars, as well as involvement in shady dealings.

The difference to other carmakers (e.g. VW!) is that their overall quality both in build and in service is extremely high and that, while BMW was involved in shady stuff, they didn't get remotely as low as VW did with gassing apes with diesel fumes...

> Basically companies like HP and Acer have multiple product ranges with different QA protocols and different margins. Yet people keep buying the cheapest consumer offerings and expect something mil-spec.

Yes. It still surprises me that most people I know - personally or otherwise - didn't figure it out yet: the lower bound on price for a consumer good is "just barely functional enough so that you can't sue the vendor for false advertising". And it's not that people expect milspec hardware. They just expect it to work decently, for a while. But those expectations are still too high.

"The H.P. Touch Computer (1983)" video[1] is nice proof how HP was great. Interesting part is around 2:30 when they don't pitch new touch screen technology(in 1983), but the way how they applied it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-THdG5gVTw

Reminds me of Apollo. I was working at HP when they bought Apollo, a workstation vendor. Sun was #1, HP was #2, and Apollo was #3. After HP bought Apollo, Sun was #1 and HP was #2. That's how big a lead Sun had.

5 years later I was in the grocery store and by the checkout register there was a stack of boxes on sale: Apollo Inkjet Printers. So that's what they did with that brand name.

That HP still exists. It's called Agilent and Keysight now.

Yes, as I said, that part of the business is now Keysight for the electronic test equipment and Agilent, which focuses on life sciences equipment.

You seem to imply that they don't realize something might have impact in the future (because it's not what they measure).

It's also possible that they are very aware of it, but just don't care. The modern corporate system, especially in the US, is set up to incentivize favoring short term results over the long term.

If it will make their numbers look better this quarter at the cost of damaging the brand down the road, unfortunately many company will choose that path, even knowingly.

The corporation is run by people and people favor short term results when they expect to be in their position for a short period.

Just as it's far less common for the regular working (wo)man to stay at the same company for decades, it's less common for CEOs to do so as well.[0]

If a CEO/president expects (through loyalty/control of the board, or otherwise) to be at the company for a long time, they will naturally make long(er) term decisions.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hewlett-Packard_execut...

I believe this is why companies often go downhill after the original founders leave and “professional management” takes over - founders generally take a less short-sighted view.

Is this really how people feel about HP?

I've always associated HP with printers — the LaserJet line specifically. I still use them for just about everything. They've always struck me as well built and reliable. Pretty good network/web UI. I've used some of their large formats too and those have been pretty nice.

Maybe I'm alone, but I'd trust HP to make a decent 3D printer.

I feel this way because I assosciate them with printers. Every possible touchpoint between customers and (all) providers in the printing space is unpleasant. They're constantly scamming people with pricing models, their software is terrible, both on-device interactions and drivers. They're terrible for the environment, as replacing your printer is often cheaper than buying more ink, and always cheaper than buying a replacement part, unless your printer cost several thousand dollars.

It's just... awful.

That’s how I feel about inkjets, not HP. They are all crap though in my opinion. I had a few as a kid in the 90s but only ever bought one and then never again.

I’ve got HP LaserJets that are 10 or 15 years old and good as the day I bought them. The driver is built into most OSes.

> I’ve got HP LaserJets that are 10 or 15 years old and good as the day I bought them. The driver is built into most OSes.

Sure, but HP from 15 years ago is not HP from now.

I have the same intuition, but was recently surprised about their laptops: Even though (or maybe because) they look like from last century they have pretty decent hardware connectivity (USB, video, ethernet etc.) and good linux support as well. It's boring but functional, like you'd expect from a business-oriented machine.

I got a spectre and was extremely disappointed. This is after getting the signature edition Windows so it would be bloatfree. The touchpad is really bad.

Perhaps there is a reason why they offer a mouse with the same design language?

> The touchpad is really bad.

To be fair: I cannot stand any kind of Windows touchpad. They all pale in comparison with Apple stuff.

It's not only the size (which makes many multitouch gestures possible) or the firmware quality (I have hit an unintended combo maybe four times on a Mac in two years, while it was a daily occurrence in the Windows world), but also the "feel". Apple trackpads use a glass surface, nearly at level with the case, while Windows laptops seem to only offer plastic at 1-2mm inset. In addition I manage to get every Windows laptop really really dirty and the touchpads stained, I have yet to achieve this goal with any part of a MacBook...

Huge part of why I refuse to switch to a non-macbook laptop, despite not being at all happy with the direction they've taken the pro in with the latest iteration.

The question is: why doesn't any laptop maker employ this technology aside from Apple?

At least Samsung and Sony should have the competence in-house from their smartphone departments, so this should not be an issue with patents.

I have also wondered this. After I switched my thinkpad with a touchpoint to my macbook I can't stand using any variety of non-apply laptops. We have a few in the lab and its always a source of frustration. My Samsung and HTC phones all seemed to work fine so I agree this should be solved.

Tbh, the closest I got was the touchpad of my X1 Carbon Thinkpad. Except from very minor tweeks I had to do, I felt like on a Mac.

>> see hp and immediately think of bad business practices

I see terrible, bloated drivers

Drivers that you may also need to pay for when upgrading your OS even though they only work with an HP device that you also paid a lot of money for.

Citation?

I can't readily find a citation online, but my personal experience with both my parents and grandparents' computer was that there was no free Windows 7 driver but was a for-purchase Windows 7 printer driver for the HP printers they had.

There was a workaround, which was to massage the Vista drivers to get them to install on Win7. Sorry if the details are fuzzy; it's been several years.

I'm not overly anti-HP, but this did leave a very bad taste in my mouth for the company. I still print on an HP3600 at home and think it's a great home printer; would buy again.

As if it that wasn't enough, HP also actively promotes apartheid and colonialism [0].

[0] https://bdsmovement.net/boycott-hp

I wouldn't buy an HP product if my alternative was to do everything by hand.

Garbage company, garbage products, and garbage management.

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