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If you’re jumping to Windows – Something to ponder
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Craig –
I love following the labyrinthine trails of your logic. First you start a post quoting a headline reading “HP to spin off PC business”, now you are ready to argue with your own headline and speculate that HP is going to dump it, whereas the actual article merely says that HP is “investigating” spinning off the PC business. So the lynch pin of your whole argument is indeed wildly speculative – only it’s you speculating and then arguing against yourself.
FCPX is not EOLd and if one can have hope for HP PCs one can have hope for FCPX. It’s speculative.
I don’t have to “hope” for HP PCs, they already exist. FCPX is not dead, it’s merely stillborn. It would have to live before it could die. You are on record as hoping it will become useful. I am on record as saying that I have no fear about the demise of the entire PC world. Time will tell, but I’m willing to wager.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions -
There’s now a lot of articles about HP’s announcement and it’s clear HP is leaving the PC business. Whether it spins off or is sold, the resultant thing that appears will be unknown. What they will do with it is unknown. Companies buy technologies for different reasons. Negotiations often leave parts in the dust. It’s clear that HP’s primary goal is “out” and they are going to look for their own business interests first.
The PC industry specific to desktops is changing. The economy is a big factor, not just the technology.
You may well see HP laptops live on under another name for example but desktops “trimmed down” in the many meanings that word might imply.
Apple, on the other hand, is likely to continue R&D on FCPX even if the resultant NLE is not to the liking of some. They are motivated to use it to sell their boxes.
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“Apple, on the other hand, is likely to continue R&D on FCPX even if the resultant NLE is not to the liking of some. They are motivated to use it to sell their boxes.”
You mean laptops and Ipads don’t you? The single screen FCPX is the official announcement of the end of the Apple workstation.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions -
“I don’t see any basis for that. Given HP’s comments it sounds like it’s all up in the air depending on what gets them the most money/value.”
Well, that is the point isn’t it. Since everything is up in the air, my point is just as valid as yours. Again, if HP spins off PSG, there’s no way to know which parts of that group will go. My bet is that enterpise level/strength hardware will stay at HP.
“As noted, in the article, PCs don’t have a big margin for them. The article states: moves that will allow it to focus on the higher-margin enterprise business revolving around software, services and servers. That’s not a workstation in my mind.”
This only supports your statements if all HP PCs sell at equally low margins. If HP is doing well by selling servers and high end workstations into large customers, then my bet is that they will fold their workstation products into the server group/division.
“Maybe you’re thinking the HP Zxx line will become a server based system.”
No, I’m saying that HP has enterprise solutions for media and entertainment, which is a combination of services, hardware and software… so it’s not unreasonable to suspect that they will want to continue upgrading customers who have 1000+ server licenses and 300+ workstation seats. I just think it’s premature to imply that HP is abandoning their z series workstations. For all anyone knows, HP will continue to support their current PC customers and even sell refurbished machines into the distant future… like IBM does with some of it’s EOL PC lines.
Thanks,
Shawn
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[Herb Sevush] “You mean laptops and Ipads don’t you? The single screen FCPX is the official announcement of the end of the Apple workstation.”
I mentioned elsewhere that my own speculation was iMacs feeding into a Server/SAN setup. Looking at the metedata in FCPX and looking at where Apple seems to be going it would be a network of workstations feeding a single powerful hub. Such box might be niched to “Pro” but might be a high margin product. I think the MacPro is going to “morph” into something else but that really depends where Thunderbolt goes and it may take more than a year for that to shake out.
If I had to use a “bite” to describe it, think maybe Avid MC and Unity but very very different. Avid’s big money maker is not Media Composer. Obviously Avid is not going to give MC that kind of radical change…but this is why I’m saying “very very different.” I think Thunderbolt will play a big role and I think Apple is more dependent on that than on FCPX to see how they will re-enter the pro market (deep wallet market).
It’s interesting that Sony AFAIK is the only PC maker to announce Thunderbolt implement (with a different connector than MiniDisplay) and they’re putting in a laptop first of course. Also interesting is that HP said no to Thunderbolt publicly and now they’re dropping out of the PC market.
I think the PC market is going through a significant change and companies in that market are exploring how to get better margins and Apple, Sony, HP are all making moves.
As far as FCPX is concerned, I think Apple’s looking for it to be scalable from Air to Server Seat and that’s part of why the media management is in such a strange state at the moment. Even the Motion to FCPX effects workflow points towards an FX designer deploying FX templates with controls on what the editor can tweak.
This doesn’t mean Apple will succeed in heading into this direction but for them it’s not as risky as it would be for other companies. In once sense one might say it’s not so much that FCPX is not worth much to Apple so much as it’s Apple’s “Penny Stock” that might by huge dividends down the road.
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[Shawn Miller] “If HP is doing well by selling servers and high end workstations into large customers, then my bet is that they will fold their workstation products into the server group/division. “
The article says
HP’s Personal Systems Group, which sells PCs, tablets and smartphones, has the company’s lowest profit margin although it accounted for nearly a third of HP’s overall revenues in 2010.
That “HP is doing well” doesn’t hit the point. They sell lots of PCs and have low margin. It’s simply not the margin they’re looking for.
“By spinning off PCs, HP could effectively isolate potentially volatile financial numbers and their effect on its more stable, higher-margin businesses,” King said
HP’s PC business has been marginally profitable, but the margins have shrunk over the years, said Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates.
The software would also give HP a foothold in the emerging big data space, where it could build systems to compete with EMC’s Greenplum and IBM’s Netezza. “Both [of those] companies consider Big Data a market with a potentially huge future,” King said.
The PC business is the first obvious domino to fall as Apotheker tries to bring profitability to the company, said Ezra Gottheil, senior analyst at Technology Business Research.
And there are other articles you can search that state that HP is getting out of the PC business. There’s nothing that leads me to think that they will retain HP Z series as part of a software service driven solution any more so than IBM.
One can hope for HP’s “Lenovo” but I see many Lenovo laptops and not desktops. The entire desktop industry is changing as is the economy which drives that.
This is why, as I’ve said elsewhere, I speculate Apple is looking at FCPX as part of a server based solution in which lower cost workstations (iMacs, etc) will feed. Apple is just taking a different approach. Think Avid Unity but very very different.
I can’t speak in detail about the technology but, watching the economics and business models can indicate possible directions. Desktops are becoming a smaller and less profitable market so the power of editing and facilities designed around them will change.
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“And there are other articles you can search that state that HP is getting out of the PC business.”
I’m not disputing that HP may be getting out of the consumer PC business… I’m saying that their enterprise business is a different animal, and that it is not inconcieveable that they’ll retain the products that support their industry solutions (hardware wise), that’s all. This happens all the time, a company may spin off a business unit or a product group, but that doesn’t mean that they’ll spin off all aspects of of that business.
“There’s nothing that leads me to think that they will retain HP Z series as part of a software service driven solution any more so than IBM”
HP’s industry solutions are a combination software, services and hardware (just like IBM). I don’t see any evidence that they’re looking to become a purely software/business consulting company like Accenture or Cap Gemini.
“Desktops are becoming a smaller and less profitable market so the power of editing and facilities designed around them will change.”
Possibly, but I don’t believe we’ll see the end of the powerful workstation anytime soon. It’s possible that editing stations will need less powerful computers in the future, but I don’t think that’s true of all post production jobs. I don’t imagine VFX/3D work will be done on iMacs or the like for a very long time to come.
Shawn
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You can always dual boot on a mac so whats the problem? And you have the same stability and continuity just like the mac world.
Richard
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Since you’re looking at PC’s I hope you’re also looking at Sony Vegas – the FIRST 64bit NLE that shipped and far more powerful, faster, more customizable and easier to use than Avid or PPro.
Just sayin…
Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Irvine, California -
Who cares if HP stops making PCs? It will have no effect whatsoever on the PC editing world. Dell will be happy and Avid and Adobe will have to qualify some new machines that’s all.
I have 2 high-end custom boxes that I built and both run Avid, Adobe and Sony apps perfectly along with AJA hardware. Don’t care about Blackmagic because they’ve always had driver and reliability issues when trying to deliver a broadcast show every week.
My PCs aren’t as pretty as my 2 Intel Macs but they’re getting used a lot more since Apple abandoned the NLE market.
PS – Is Craig Seeman the biggest pest in the history of the Cow or what? FCPX will NEVER be widely adapted in the pro world – it’s complete crap.
Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Irvine, California
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