Re: HP Calculators - not what they should be !
Message #5 Posted by Glynn on 21 Apr 2001, 2:13 a.m.,
in response to message #4 by Jonathan
Just some random musings:
Financial calcs are pretty well-defined. Even when you think of ALL potential users and uses, you can STILL come up with a set of functions that pretty well please the lot. Indeed, that's what HP did years ago-- and why the dang things still sell after all this time.
Sci uses and users are more slippery. Each niche of the scientific market is small and sees needs and roles for their tools other niches do not. Some require graphing; others heavy matrix manipulation. Some want data-logging; others low power. PC communication for a few; programmability for most; lots of embedded functions and conversions for others. Programmers and surveyors and nuclear-reactor specialists and math teachers do not all desire the same calc. But they ALL want it cheap and easy to operate.
(How cheap and how easy? Now THOSE things can be pinned down. Because you don't operate in a vacuum. If Palms can sell for $150, a utilitarian "sci" calc can't sell for $250 and come with an inch-thick binder of programming instructions. Not anymore.)
Back in the day, HP VERY nearly accomodated everyone they could have, especially with the protean 41 series. It was NOT cheap, but still sold well, up until alternatives like full computers were attainable by the professional crowd.
The 41s and 71s and so on could be made to do ANYTHING, with enough effort. But this is no longer a selling point. Indeed, the Palms and laptops have made this moot.
So calculators, by which I mean handheld button-based computing devices, might well have evolved into MORE SPECIALIZATION... an educational/theoretical calc, a surveyor's calc, a programmer's calc, an astronomer's calc....
And some of this has come to pass, in a limited way. But a specialized calc has such a small market, by itself, it may well not pay for its own development. (This is, in my opinion, where Xpander got sniffed. The Product development group says yes, this is good technology that people will love us for. Marketing says no, it won't sell to enough people to be worth making, and we're not working for love.)
Some smaller companies, not needing so much volume, are in fact marketing such things as Surveyor's calcs and Astronomer's calcs. But you the consumer pay high prices to make up for low volume.
It's been obvious for some time that HP has de-emphasized development of new "sci" models, in favor of following the large and proven market for student and "swiss-army" tools: replete with built-in functions to attract the casual calc user, but not really expandable or utilitarian as the 41 series was. But within a student's budget, or as an impulse purchase in a WalMart or a BestBuy.
Hmmm, "swiss-army" calcs made cheap and comfortable for mass marketing-- that's what HP is possibly aiming for. Looks like they are doing it as well as they know how.
That they abandoned a tiny demand for well-built but expensive professional tools... well, lament it, but as Dave said, the calculator market is not what it used to be, and if HP brought out a calc that cost like a Palm but didn't offer all the same amenities for its size, and still had to be expanded to serve a part of its audience, well...
You'd have in fact a 48GX, and expect to serve your diverse audience with vertical-market Application Modules, which you would expect to develop over time.
If THAT methodology bombs in the marketplace, you'd timidly stick to whatever the largest identifiable mass market is buying. You would make a 6s, for example. And a 39G.
And a packload of your hoary-old financial calcs, which still bring home their bacon.
As I say, just some musings. Nite-nite. :-)
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