Okay, now. So maybe I'm just out of touch...
Has anyone REALLY heard definitely that HP is exiting the calculator market?
All I have heard, so far, is one reference here to hpcalc.org, which responded (perhaps apocalyptically?) to news that the Xpander was axed....
Believe me, big companies always have their own internal struggles. Xpander was a product that NEEDED a serious evaluation of its market. It failed to pass the test of a product that really met its intended market's desires. Add to that, that HP's mobile computing division has plenty of palmtops either ready to go, or in development.
Neither of these things, to me, signal HP's giving up on calcs. It MAY mean a re-emphasis on financial calcs, or a redesign of Xpander to be more than a crippled but trigonometry-savvy palm-pilot. Or any number of options, including the possibility that a calc division might be subsumed into the palmtop/handhelds development group, but still delivering calcs.
So is there any official word from HP? Any weird marketing thing from HP like a clearance sale? Any resumes from ACO personnel on Dice.com? Surely a few insiders on the mothership have come out and stated that nothing new is planned, that TI and Casio have won, that the board voted to relocate the calculator division to Antarctica....
If no, aren't we just grieving for the OLD HP again, the one that gave us the professional tools, NOT the one that produced the 6S and 39G and Xpander?
If YES, then I'll weep too; not that HP has shed some of its roots-- but that HP was too stupid to recognize the marketing blunders that were theirs to correct, and having lost their way, decided the effort was too great (and the market too small) to justify pursuing it with more purpose.
And then I'll possibly start my own calculator company. ;-) Or at least cheer on the one that thinks a lucrative and prestigious bit of market still exists for serious dedicated numeric computing devices.
So. Point me to the info, fellow web-citizens. Lead on!