HP Forum Archive 20

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Confirmed sellers of the 15C LE? Message #1 Posted by Peter Murphy (Livermore) on 30 Aug 2011, 2:19 p.m. Can Forum members provide links to sites at which the 15C LE is positively for sale, and the prices at which they're offered? Thanks.

Re: Confirmed sellers of the 15C LE? Message #2 Posted by Namir on 30 Aug 2011, 2:41 p.m., in response to message #1 by Peter Murphy (Livermore) I think it's a wait and see approach!! A bit like how my house (and my neighbors) STILL lack electrical power due to the hurricane Irene. Namir Edited: 30 Aug 2011, 2:41 p.m.

Re: Confirmed sellers of the 15C LE? Message #3 Posted by Ethan Conner on 30 Aug 2011, 3:01 p.m., in response to message #1 by Peter Murphy (Livermore) At least as of a few weeks ago Samson Cables was taking "orders" or maybe more accurately selling places in line for 109.95$. That's where i put my money. You could try there. I think they are calling it the "special 1". You have to get on their new calculator mailing list then they will send you a link to "order" the 15c.

Re: Confirmed sellers of the 15C LE? Message #4 Posted by Lincoln R. on 30 Aug 2011, 10:53 p.m., in response to message #3 by Ethan Conner Hm, interesting. I did notice that for sale, I'm just rather suspicious given the turmoil at HP. I just hope that I'll be able to buy one when/if they come to market.

Re: Confirmed sellers of the 15C LE? Message #5 Posted by Steve Fennell on 30 Aug 2011, 3:06 p.m., in response to message #1 by Peter Murphy (Livermore) I don't think it's for sale anywhere. I placed an order at Samson Cables, but they have since pulled the listing from their catalog. I e-mailed them after that and they said they took down their listing until an official announcement was made. They expected an ETA of October through December this year. With that said, and that is all the information I have, I really wonder if it will be released given the HP corporate gyrations taking place. I certainly hope it will be released, but until there's an official announcement everything is just a rumor. At this point the only "evidence" of a release are HP websites listing the item unofficially, and suppliers willing to take pre-orders.

Re: Confirmed sellers of the 15C LE? Message #6 Posted by Ethan Conner on 30 Aug 2011, 4:42 p.m., in response to message #5 by Steve Fennell Be encouraged. There is a article on engadget that states hp is making another run of touchpads this fall to satisfy demand. So if they are willing to do that for one item in the midst of their upheaval maybe this will translate to the 15c. I believe this has to do with overwhelming demand which may or may not translate to the 15c le. It looks to me like they do pay attention to an item selling out.

Re: Confirmed sellers of the 15C LE? Message #7 Posted by Paul Gaster on 31 Aug 2011, 1:12 a.m., in response to message #6 by Ethan Conner The Touchpad story makes me cringe. They had to be selling those at a huge loss, so they decide to make another production run? What? Are they not hemorrhaging enough money fast enough?

Re: Confirmed sellers of the 15C LE? Message #8 Posted by Katie Wasserman on 31 Aug 2011, 1:44 a.m., in response to message #7 by Paul Gaster It costs $306 to make the 16G model that they now sell for $100. So they lose $206 for each unit they sell, but they make it up in volume :-) Corporate suicide, the HP Way! Edited: 31 Aug 2011, 1:44 a.m.

Re: Confirmed sellers of the 15C LE? Message #9 Posted by Michael de Estrada on 31 Aug 2011, 2:56 a.m., in response to message #8 by Katie Wasserman HP is just following the current federal government economic model of "stimulating" the economy by spending more money than they bring in from taxes as a result. It kinda reminds me of this stock broker who told me that I had lost a bundle in the market, but the good part was I could write it off on my income taxes.

Re: Confirmed sellers of the 15C LE? Message #10 Posted by Eric Smith on 31 Aug 2011, 3:02 a.m., in response to message #8 by Katie Wasserman I don't believe any of the BoM cost figures in any of the published tear downs. The analysts don't seem to have realistic estimates for the costs of components in the volumes in which consumer goods are actually manufactured. Those component prices may be the published prices from the component vendors, but large customers such as HP, Apple, Dell, etc. negotiate much better deals. Imagine if automobile magazines tried to estimate the cost to GM of manufacturing a new Corvette based on parts prices from AC Delco. They would conclude that a Corvette costs GM $500,000 to manufacture. That said, I also do expect that HP was losing money at the $99 price point. I just don't believe that the loss was anywhere near $206/unit.

Re: Confirmed sellers of the 15C LE? Message #11 Posted by Calum Tait on 31 Aug 2011, 4:32 a.m., in response to message #10 by Eric Smith I agree that this cost seems excessive. For instance DDR2 DRAM is trading at the moment for less than a dollar per Gb yet they have costed 8Gb at $26.00! I also know from experience that when you start getting quotes for components in the hundreds of thousands then the prices become staggeringly low. I would seriously doubt that the Touchpads cost much more than $150.00 to make delivered to the US.

Re: Confirmed sellers of the 15C LE? Message #12 Posted by Howard Owen on 31 Aug 2011, 4:58 a.m., in response to message #7 by Paul Gaster Well, others do it for strategic reasons. Amazon has an Android tablet coming that they are expected to sell below cost. They hope to get more coming in from integration with their main lines of business, of course.

Second production run of TouchPad Message #13 Posted by Vladan Dugaric on 31 Aug 2011, 7:30 a.m., in response to message #7 by Paul Gaster If HP purchased components or made a firm commitment to purchase, they cannot just pull out; for them it might actually be cheaper to just produce them than not. In such case, selling them for $100 apiece will reduce their unit loss by $100 less cost they incur in transport/sales. That makes economic sense even if on the surface it does not. This is a very frequent thing in various commerical contracts, especially public purchases (government IT contracts, weapons contracts, etc.). Almost always the contract terms are made to effectively remove the option of cancellation even in the face of escalating cost of the project. It then becomes less costly to go ahead and complete a loss making order than to cancel it. Vladan

Re: Second production run of TouchPad Message #14 Posted by Paul Gaster on 31 Aug 2011, 10:19 a.m., in response to message #13 by Vladan Dugaric I bet you are correct, and it makes sense. I worked as a project engineer for a contract manufacturing company for just over 10 years so I should have caught that to be honest. Once in a great while we would have a customer back out of a project for various reasons or they would introduce a revision that involved changing materials. They were always on the hook for parts we had ordered, anything in process or already made at the factory, and anything in transport to us or them. What doesn't make sense is for HP to have made a rash decision to have a firesale without having a handle on the goods and materials in process first.

What about Europe? Message #15 Posted by Lode on 31 Aug 2011, 7:33 a.m., in response to message #1 by Peter Murphy (Livermore) Will the price in Europe be similar or will it be 3x as high as usual? Will there be enough of them released in Europe?

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