The TouchPad firesale fiasco this past weekend exposed a dirty little secret of the computer and Internet worlds... No one is in charge (and no one's been in charge for a long time).
Like many others, I had a TouchPad firesale purchase ($99/16GB) cancelled by the wonderful, upstanding merchants at Amazon and onSale. I include Amazon as a full-fledged co-conspirator since they host the onSale storefront.
Here's my take on the firesale weekend...
Good Outcomes
The TouchPad (severely overpriced at the original $499 for the 16GB model, still overpriced at $399) was a super bargain at the $99 firesale price.
HP inadvertently changed the future pricing structure of the tablet PC market. Apple may be able to maintain their pricing structure, but every other tablet manufacturer is faced with selling their tablets at a loss, in hopes of somehow finding a profit in the long run.
Revelation of the Dirty Little Secret
Commerce on the Internet is built on sand. The underpinnings -- both human and electronic -- are sand and washed away rapidly by unanticipated forces.
What most of us saw and experienced were the crashing waves of the TouchPad weekend washing out the sandy electronic foundation beneath the websites selling the TouchPad, exposing them to the open air.
The waves also exposed a lack of business integrity that has been hidden behind the gloss of the Internet for a generation now.
Merchants took TP orders that they couldn't possibly fill. Where were the businesspersons with the integrity to say "Shut it down. If we don't have 'em, we can't sell 'em."?
Merchants were clueless -- and continue to be clueless -- in regard to matching the firesale price of the TP for all purchasers, regardless of the date of purchase. Some have matched. Some won't match. Some will match, for some dates purchased. Some will match for some people, regardless of when purchased.
Where's the integrity? HP has asked TP merchants to match the firesale price for all purchases.
No one is in charge here. No one has been in charge for a long time.
Follow me on Twitter... @rnolan1087
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