OFF TOPIC N.Y. Times offers bad advice to HP

[Jed Rothwell]

From a N. Y. Times editorial today:

"Hewlett's board says it isn't considering retreating from Ms. Fiorina's goal of offering a smorgasbord of high-tech goodies to businesses and consumers. Let's hope that's just machismo. The best thing Hewlett could do would be to get rid of the bells and whistles Ms. Fiorina acquired, and focus on its core - and enormously profitable - business: printers and cartridges."

Jed adds:  . . . enormously profitable until maybe five years from now, when someone finally comes out with viable e-books and e-paper with resolution and contrast as good as real paper. Then the company tanks.

Never put all your eggs in one technological basket.

I depend upon paper printouts quite a bit, but I recently added a second screen to my computer -- a 19" flat panel. It reduces the use of paper because I can compare full-page documents side-by-side. Sooner or later, someone will build an e-book style "e-printer" the takes output to a printer port and displays it on a 20" flat panel that lies on your desk (horizontal and flat!) and does nothing but flip back and forth between pages and page thumbnails. That will eliminate maybe half of the printer market.

- Jed