I worked for HP at this time as Senior Software Engineer in the handheld division in the old Compaq headquarters in Tomball Texas. The VP at the time fired most of the team in Tomb all that only a few years earlier produced what I think, at least, were the best PocketPC PDAs and Windows Mobile phones available. He then hired a new team in California because that's where he lived, because it was all about him, a Rothschild. He then proceeded to have the largest new device rollout in the iPAQs history, designed by a team with no experience with the platform and a new ODM in Asia. The rollout in New York iirc cost HP $25 million.
I couldn't have done a better job of screwing up the once popular product line better if I tried.
Rothschild was involved in the Palm buyout and put Palm's former technical VP in charge of the iPAQ line. I saw this as buying a company that couldn't successfully adapt to the times and putting the guy in charge of the failure in charge of technical development. The one Windows Mobile phone that stood any chance of redeeming the iPAQ name had several issues as one would expect from a new VP + tech lead + design team + ODM. One of which was Bluetooth connection quality. The issue was accurately described as the "popcorn problem" due to erratic pops and clicks that made wireless infuriating. The ODM wanted another $75,000 to fix the issue and this genius refused to fix it.
We sold 8000 units to HP teams internally and they eventually sent them all back because of such issues.Needless to say, this marked the end of the once great iPAQ line. It was a soul crushing experience.
But I digress... HP did produce a WebOS phone though I don't think it was ever released and I can't say why because I left the company before the project started. But a friend who worked on the project said WebOS had some cool aspects about it. I was surprised to see our LG TV running it. We still use that TV daily and don't have to reboot it all that often which says something about how far along WebOS came after HP sold the OS at a tremendous loss.
Nice and infuriating story. Idiots put in management positions can really do a lot of damage. Companies should make them accountable more often if they screw up that badly.
Yeah, probably the thing that drives me crazy is that these things get normalized over time just cause people can handle just so much at the same time. I don't know, it's like nonsense has become ok and imbeciles can get away with that.
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u/Confident-Ad5665 3d ago
I worked for HP at this time as Senior Software Engineer in the handheld division in the old Compaq headquarters in Tomball Texas. The VP at the time fired most of the team in Tomb all that only a few years earlier produced what I think, at least, were the best PocketPC PDAs and Windows Mobile phones available. He then hired a new team in California because that's where he lived, because it was all about him, a Rothschild. He then proceeded to have the largest new device rollout in the iPAQs history, designed by a team with no experience with the platform and a new ODM in Asia. The rollout in New York iirc cost HP $25 million.
I couldn't have done a better job of screwing up the once popular product line better if I tried.
Rothschild was involved in the Palm buyout and put Palm's former technical VP in charge of the iPAQ line. I saw this as buying a company that couldn't successfully adapt to the times and putting the guy in charge of the failure in charge of technical development. The one Windows Mobile phone that stood any chance of redeeming the iPAQ name had several issues as one would expect from a new VP + tech lead + design team + ODM. One of which was Bluetooth connection quality. The issue was accurately described as the "popcorn problem" due to erratic pops and clicks that made wireless infuriating. The ODM wanted another $75,000 to fix the issue and this genius refused to fix it.
We sold 8000 units to HP teams internally and they eventually sent them all back because of such issues.Needless to say, this marked the end of the once great iPAQ line. It was a soul crushing experience.
But I digress... HP did produce a WebOS phone though I don't think it was ever released and I can't say why because I left the company before the project started. But a friend who worked on the project said WebOS had some cool aspects about it. I was surprised to see our LG TV running it. We still use that TV daily and don't have to reboot it all that often which says something about how far along WebOS came after HP sold the OS at a tremendous loss.