Broadband Developments

HP is building a touchscreen according to the Wall Street Journal. For all those guys like me who worked at HP in the 80s remember that HP had a touchscreen computer.  HP had the early technology back in the day…. Lets see if they can take their leadership in PCs to get us a nice touchscreen.  Lets hope that HP can get the form factor very low for mobile.  The project is being head up by Phil McKinney - I thought that he left HP.

Here is a short summary from WSJ. …

The computer giant is now developing a consumer notebook machine with a touch screen that will debut before year end, said people familiar with the matter. It will include special H-P software that supports the touch screen, but other details, such as pricing, remained unclear.

The new laptop is the latest in a series of touch-oriented devices, including an upcoming line of cellphones, that will become a priority of H-P’s consumer strategy as it tries to differentiate itself from rivals such as Dell Inc., these people said.

H-P began promoting touch screens last year with a big-screen desktop computer called the TouchSmart. The Palo Alto, Calif., company introduced a revamped TouchSmart this year, with new software and a new external design and has recently ramped up its effort to market the computer.

The touch-sensitive screens allow PC users to move items around, surf the Web or open files with their fingertips, replacing functions normally performed by a mouse and keyboard.

Roger Kay, a PC-industry analyst with Endpoint Technologies, said H-P is trying to create a new market with its focus on touch, since there’s no established market for such products other than Apple Inc.’s iPhone. Tablet PCs, or touch-screen laptops, “haven’t done that well” in the past, he added.

H-P’s touch-screen effort is being led by executives such as Phil McKinney, the PC division’s chief technical officer. Mr. McKinney has been working on PC software that masks Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system, and has hired the design company Frog Design to help develop new touch software and hardware. The TouchSmart desktop was the first result of that project.

To capitalize on netbook growth, H-P is planning to introduce a new netbook with a 10-inch screen this year, said people familiar with the matter. The netbook won’t feature a touch screen. H-P has been selling a smaller netbook geared toward schools since earlier this year.

While H-P started selling a touch-screen laptop last year, Mr. Kay said the company put relatively little effort into marketing it. People familiar with H-P’s current plans said the company will be more aggressive with its new products.

These people said H-P is also working on a line of consumer cellphones that feature touch screens and the first such phone will be introduced in Europe this year. H-P plans to start selling the phones through a U.S. cellular carrier within the next year or so, they added.

Cisco today announced the expansion of its relationship with HP to enhance the delivery of Cisco Unified Communications to customers around the world. The expanded relationship includes investments by both companies for training and building global marketing and sales programs.

HP has global strategic alliances with both Cisco and Microsoft, and HP has a wide range of expertise in deploying both companies’ unified communications solutions HP is thus a global services partner of choice for customers looking to integrate Cisco and Microsoft-based UC solutions to meet their specific business needs.

The quote below from HP’s Dan Socci is interesting. HP is playing a neutral position between Microsoft and Cisco. HP is leveraging it’s services offering and broad account base to bring in new Unified Communications solutions. The problem is that most large environments don’t know what Unified Communications means. Either way the notion of presence will be at the heart of it.

Here’s HP’s quote: classic PR quote that doesn’t really say anything

“Companies are increasingly transforming their communication and collaboration environments to speed decision making and lower costs. They need to do this without diverting valuable technology resources and driving up operational expenses,” said Dan Socci, vice president, Network Solutions for HP. “HP works with industry-leading unified communications technology providers such as Cisco and Microsoft to provide solutions tailored to meet the specific needs of customers.”

What does this mean for customers?

I love how the bandwagon of cloud computing it hitting on all time high. Everyone is about the cloud. Today AT&T announced it is joining the Cloud Bandwangon. AT&T said Tuesday that it will offer cloud computing services via a new service dubbed AT&T Synaptic Hosting. AT&T is just the latest company to join the cloud computing game. Everyone from traditional IT giants like HP and IBM to Amazon and Google have cloud computing services catering to companies ranging from enterprise giants to startups.

The category of the “Cloud” is the new branding or categorically sector for all the big infrastructure players. Cloud computing is the new category that we’ll all keep score on who is the best vendor.

Why is cloud computing such a hit for these companies? It’s because it spans multiple sectors - enterprise datacenter, web services, consumer, virtualization, security. It’s sort of a convergence between intranets, DMZ, extranet, and outside web all in one.

It’s a land grab and yet it’s so unknown. It’s a marketing dream for a big vendor to say ‘we own the cloud’.

My take: it can’t be owned. Lock-in is harder in today climate. Old lock in tactics don’t work in today’s infrastructure.

What are the new lock-in tactics? We’ll be covering them. Right now Google, VMWare, and Amazon are putting on a clinic in the cloud area. Everyone else is an also ran.

Intel, HP and Yahoo are joining forces for a joint research initiative according to PCWorld and TechCrunch. I thought only Google felt entitled to making announcements on forthcoming announcements. What could it be? HP and Intel makes a bit of sense given they ae hardware partners but how does Yahoo, exclusively a hardware company, fit? They promised an answer by 8am this morning. Here it is 9am and I haven’t seen anything so it’s speculation time. Here are some ideas tossed around to me and some friends:

1. A mobile device focusing on Yahoo’s mobile services - We all agree mobile is a huge evolving market but unless Yahoo comes up with a game changing killer app this is a bad idea. Even the agile giant google can’t seem to get their phone out on time. That brings up the other issue, how would it differentiate itself from smart phones and what would it use for transport?
2. Yahoo bloatware installed on all HP PCs - Okay, just like AOL back in the day but where does Intel fit in? …and this isn’t exactly a research initiative.
3. Cloud computer - Really a cloud computer is just a small step up from a dumb terminal. I’m not sure Yahoo has the resources and applications to compete with MSFT, google and all of web 2.0 in the cloud but it does make the most sense given the who’s who involved.

Update: Looks like #3 was at least partially right. Intel, HP and Yahoo have partnered to launch a cloud computing “test bed”. I’m not sure on the test bed part… Aren’t there plenty of companies doing cloud computing pretty darned well? The most interesting part is who’s not involved, meaning Google and Microsoft. They are clearly leaders in this space. Intel has very close business ties to Microsoft and HP some business and non-business ties to Google.