You sir, deserve teenage feet all over your lawn.

You sent this cold shiver running up and down my spine. Then I realized you weren't talking about the American Stock Market. Thank god!

So I'll end this discussion right now:

Only Hitler would own a smartphone.

Which lawsuits has Apple filed on people who jailbreak their phones?

In fact wasn't it declared that jailbreaking was legal under US law?

Yes.

Next Question: How do we topple it?

Unless of course the email delays cost you $200+ in business.

Except Siri doesn't do translation, it does voice command recognition. This is a fail by the editors, picking a submission that deliberately creates an "Apple vs Google" headline to stir up page loads. It's like comparing Google Reader to Apple Mail, it's nonsensical.

I think you captured the state of Apple's relationship with the media and general public perfectly. Bravo! I hope you get 1 million mod points.

I was a personal acquaintance of his and coworker for about a year and kept in touch for years. I miss our monthly Chinese buffet lunches. Last I heard he was working at IBM as a consultant but that was years ago. I also know that he has two kids in the mid to high single digits. He's working, making plenty of money for his family, and taking care of his responsibilities. It's sad not to see more on his blog lately. However his primary money maker was not his blog or his books.

I too have a blog but it was neither as popular or as entertaining, but the same thing happened to me. I've gotten married, assumed more family responsibilities, and I just don't have time to update it. Right now I'm sure his priorities are elsewhere. It's not infosuicide so much as we all want more and he's simply not giving it to us. I'm sorry to say you'll just have to move on. That's the beauty of the internet.

Mark if you are out there, drop me a line sometime.

This is why everyone gets my Google Voice number now. Robocalling? Right into the blocked callers group you go!

Tevatron will be resurrected as... GALVATRON!

I don't disagree with you. I guess I should have clarified that this is WHY HP is doing this, and on some level it makes sense, but HP may not be as successful as an IBM on this switch. However I don't think HP's move is born of nero-watching-rome-burn-like insanity.

Eventually you'll be correct about your farmer story, but considering large businesses the world over are flush with cash, there's demand for consulting services. Currently it's a growth industry.

Does HP really want to give up that long-term cash flow to go chase its dreams?

In a word, yes. In three words, oh hell yes.

PC hardware is a commodity market and it's a mess. The upside that anyone can build a PC these days is a double edged sword, because just about anyone can build a PC these days, and the ones that do it the cheapest are the ones who win out. Margins are razor thin. High end desktops are a rare purchase. Mid-range desktops are only sold mostly to businesses when they don't need a laptop. Laptops are losing out to iPads and Macbooks now, which are solid alternatives at comparable prices, AND have better quality on average. HP is not making gobs and gobs of profit on hardware, only Apple, Samsung and HTC seem to be able to do that at the moment. Sure they might bring in $100 million in revenue but it cost like $99 million to make that. The numbers are exaggerated of course but the point is that HP sees that their hardware business is not making as much profit as you think, and it's the profit that's important.

Look, IBM created the PC and it was their cash cow for years. They then established a business consulting branch to encourage people to buy their machines. Then Compaq came along and ate their lunch, and suddenly their cash cow went away. One day, someone realized "holy shit! Our consultants make more money than our hardware does. All we do is contract out the manufacturing work to some other bozo anyway, let's sell hardware and make consulting our new cash cow, and simply tell them to buy whatever hardware we feel like."

What's funny is when IBM did this, similar things happened economically then that are happening now. 2001, the dotcom bubble bursts, 3 years later IBM sells it's hardware to work business to business. 2008, housing market crashes and 3 years later, HP gets out of hardware. In both situations, the average household consumer is hit hard and hurting, median middle class wages are practically stagnant and not keeping up with inflation, but corporate profits continue to rise in both instances.

Follow the money, the money is in businesses paying businesses for business consulting to run their business more. Huge international companies selling to average consumers is folly compared to selling to business these days especially when all the money is in corporations and rich people's pockets (that's not some political slogan, that's just the truth). Sure HP could keep it's hardware, it's probably still profitable over all, but why work so hard at making a little money when you could work half as hard and still make a killing in business consulting?

They both suck! Babylon 5 pwnz j00r future!

*scurries back under the bridge*