In Flop of H.P. TouchPad, an Object Lesson for the Tech Sector

Jon Rubinstein, left, and Todd Bradley, Hewlett-Packard executives, holding WebOS devices including the TouchPad.

The TouchPad tablet from Hewlett-Packard was one of the most closely watched new gadgets of 2011 — and quickly turned out to be the year’s biggest flop. The TouchPad, which was supposed to be a rival to Apple’s iPad, lasted just seven weeks on the market before H.P. killed it, citing weak sales. 

Analysts point to a long list of factors behind the tablet’s quick demise. But some of the people involved in creating the tablet’s core software now say the product barely had a fighting chance.

That software is called WebOS, an operating system built on the same technology used by many Web browsers. It promised to be more flexible and open than Apple’s tightly controlled iOS software, and more beautiful than Google’s sometimes wonky Android system. H.P. acquired Palm, the maker of WebOS, for $1.2 billion in 2010 so it could use the software in products like the TouchPad.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/technology/hewlett-packards-touchpad-was-built-on-flawed-software-some-say.html?_r=1&ref=technology

Roku Looks Beyond the Set-Top Box

“Set-top box” is one of those puzzling anachronisms, like “record industry,” that seems to persist for no clear reason. Perching a cable tuner, TiVo or Apple TV on top one of today’s slim television sets would require either amazing balancing skills, very strong adhesive or a bit of both.

For the last several years, Roku has been one of the companies selling devices that let users stream Internet video to their televisions from a big lineup of programming sources, including Netflix and Hulu Plus. Even though you can’t balance them on top of a modern television set, the Roku boxes are tiny things, roughly the size of a hockey puck.

Roku is announcing a plan on Wednesday to get rid of the box entirely.

The company is developing a product called the Roku Streaming Stick, a device that will be about the size of one of those miniature thumb drives you plug into a PC to back up documents and other files. The stick, which slips unobtrusively into an HDMI jack on the back of a TV, provides all of the same access to Roku’s video programming partners that one can get from a Roku box but without an extra piece of hardware dangling from the set by an umbilicus.

In an interview, Anthony Wood, Roku’s chief executive and founder, said the product was an outgrowth of the early consumer research Roku did as it was preparing to make its first Internet boxes. “What we found is that one of the biggest objections to the box was that it was there,” Mr. Wood said.

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PayPal Executive Named Chief of Yahoo

In this photograph taken by AP Images for PayPal, PayPal President Scott Thompson, right, demos upcoming technologies at the PayPal Shopping Showcase, Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2011, in New York. (Diane Bondareff/AP Images for PayPal)

Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/SciTech/20120104/yahoo-looking-to-paypall-president-as-next-ceo-report-120104/#ixzz1iVbagCdc

Yahoo, the struggling consumer media company, announced on Wednesday that its new chief executive would be Scott Thompson, the president of PayPal, the online payment service. 

Mr. Thompson, analysts say, has a background mainly as a technologist instead of being an expert in digital media or corporate turnarounds. While PayPal, a division of eBay, is a consumer service, analysts said that is very different from a media company.

But in a conference call on Wednesday morning, Roy J. Bostock, the chairman of Yahoo’s board, said that at PayPal Mr. Thompson had proved he could take a company with solid assets and build the business. That is the central challenge at Yahoo, Mr. Bostock said, noting that the company has a wealth of strong media and advertising assets, and an online audience of more than 700 million visitors a month. 

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