Ray wrote:

>Duane writes:
>
>> hp is not in business to make you money. They are in business
>> to make themselves money.
>
>
>Anheiser Bush is also in the business of making money, but
>they full well understand that to make money, the purveyors of their
product
>offerings (at what ever level of sales) need to make money too.  To that
>end, Anheiser Bush (and thousands of other companies) provide little (big)
>things like cooperative advertising moneys/materials, etc..  The point
>being, that hp can not make money if their customers are not making money
>(but then, you already knew that...right?).

Yes. Thank you Ray for giving me the benefit of the doubt!

What you are describing is a business model that AB has chosen to use in
order to maximise the sales of their chosen product. What I was referring
to was a company's ability to first decide what product(s) they might
make/sell and then over time to be able to change their minds due to
various market conditions, corporate strategy, etc.

In the case of AB, if they created a brand that didn't sell well enough
for them to continue, they would eventually cancel it. In fact, they
would due this even if it was profitable, but didn't make 'target numbers'
which are used to determine whether a product should be continued. There
may be many people who like that product, but AB still has the final
say in whether they continue to sell that product. And that choice might
affect a distributor downstream who now has less product to sell, thereby
reducing the distributor's profit (until they find a replacement product).

Any company doesn't exist in a vacuum and has a role to play in the
social order of things. The products they make then become part of
that social order. And as Wirt has pointed out, a computer system like
the HP e3000 is a more critical component than a particular commodity
consumer product like a beer brand (please no hate mail by beer
officionados)...

This then, IMHO, requires the make of that product to be more careful about
how they choose to stop making/selling that product. To me, the choice
to continue making/selling a product is the company's choice, but how they
decide to deal with a choice to not make/sell the product falls right in
line with business ethics.

In the choice to not make/sell the hp e3000 I think that hp has done a fine
job with respect to the ethics of how to wind down a product like this.
There
are many examples of a company not disclosing anything up until the vary
last
moment and then going 'dark' leaving the customer base in the lurch.

I actually applaud hp for making the tough choice here and for giving us all
at least 5 years to make another choice. And with the efforts of OpenMPE
there
might be more time for some to continue with the hp e3000 as a viable
'supported'
platform.


>The other obvious fact is that to make MORE money, Anheiser
>Bush advertises, and sponsors and on and on and on, so that they can
present
>their product offerings to other than those that already consume it...this
is a
>fundamental business practice that hp seemed to have missed with respect to
>the hp3k and MPE products (but then, you already knew that...right?).

My complaints about hp marketing go back 21 years. However, the fact that
a company fails to execute a good marketing plan for a product doesn't
affect this discussion other than to point out that they didn't do the
best job possible (in our opinion).

I fail at many things I try as well. I do give them (hp/csy) credit for
trying and they have always behaved honorably in my estimation.

duane percox

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