Switched On: A Case of “He Said, HP Said”

In memoriam of HP's exit from the MP3 resale market last month, Ross Rubin of NPD writes a humorous and fictitious account of the initial coversations between Apple and HP in his Switched On column at Engadget. Although hypothetical, Apple's hardline stance probably rings true in many ways.

Rubin concludes with the following observation:

When HP dropped the iPod, Apple noted that HP had sold about 7 percent of iPods worldwide. That sounds like a trivial amount until one realizes that most of Apple’s other competitors have suffered similar market shares. HP has proven it can come from behind; it entered the PC market late and rose to dominate retail sales. Yet, while partnering with Apple may have been the second-worst way to enter the portable digital player, re-entering at this point competing with Apple would be the worst one.

HP still has the iPaq, which Tim Bajarin at Creative Strategies mentioned last month as a possible platform for a portable media device. It calls, web browses, messages, plays music and video, and probably slices and dices too. The pieces are there, but can they market it properly?