Is that why Apple's stock dropped -1.15 today?

Yes, the chicago costco had HP color ipods a couple of months ago... recently I've only seen HP ipod minis... But I'm sure more will be on the way.

Re: the stock drop... knee jerk reaction. Investors and analysts have NEVER known how to handle Apple stock. It's a long-term investment.

Costco has had HP iPods for months and months -- almost as soon as HP started selling them. Our local Costcos (yes, we have 3 within a 20 minute drive) all had the color one as son as any other HP retailer...

I think people might be making too big of a deal about the reputation of HP support and their products. The last times I looked (5 local shops and HP online this week) I found their products to be competitive in price, far better in appearance than most PC's and as an owner I'll say that they have good quality with excellent support. You do get someone on the phone 24 hours a day and no matter where they are they try to please. AppleCare comes out number one, but I think HP is a close second. Their problem is they are in the same machine matrix apple was in when Steve Jobs came back. Remember the product matrix? 1 consumer model, 1 consumer portable, 1 pro model, 1 pro portable...well HP has at least 5 different base laptops under the HP brand, not to mention the Compaq ones. And all of those have a bunch of different configurations. Not only the BTO issue, but many stores by bulk orders of what they think is the best BTO. So if someone in a board meeting pointed out 'hey we have WAY too many options just in the laptop department and our channel inventory is going to start bogging down more and more' I'd guess the first thing that goes after the personnel cut is the traditional product matrix. HP needs to refine it's line and that's probably what they are concentrating on. So why cut the ipod?

As one poster mentioned no price protection..ok and? Maybe they didn't get a great deal on distribution, but they probably brought more people into their stores. OH WAIT..they don't own stores. Did anyone comparison shop HP's v Apple for their iPods? Maybe a few, but did they buy an HP computer as a result? There are a few proprietary connectors on HP machines for iPods, but that's about it. They got the publicity they needed for a brand, but what is the use in publicity when you're over-diversified and over-extended? There's some innovation I'd like to see Apple get. A media remote that hides in the cardbus slot...well I like it. I'd be happy if they sold that on the market. They obviously licensed the h*** out of card readers so now they are not just on their printers, but their laptops too. Hey! I don't even have a basic card reader on my mac w/o taking up a usb port...not a bad thing.

So maybe they're doing a dell and going to sell or rebrand their own unique player w/ 'plays anywhere, but NEVER WINS' licensed. There's a lot of places out there that still only sell Wintected songs and some of the labels (you may try to call them indy, but they sign some major acts that sometimes evade contracts and end up on itms ;) even have their own players. HP might do better pleasing the PC crowd w/ a Ministry Of Sound player, but they still lose the revenue. No. I think they're going to reorganize their product matrix first and develop audio options while doing so. They may produce their own player, they may not. So one question is...

Will every HP machine still come bundled with iTunes?

Looks like someone at HP finally realized how stupid it was to sell another company's product with their tagline "Invent."

Wasn't this deal the "brainchild" (I'm using the term loosely) of Carly Fiorina, the despicable person who destroyed HP? No wonder it's no longer hot news. Meanwhile, the new leader at HP looks like he's noticed Fiorina put the company at the edge of the abyss and he's decided to make a big leap forward.

As one poster mentioned no price protection..ok and?

Price protection is enough. Right now, HP is stuck with a bunch of iPods that cost $100 more than what Apple is selling, because Apple decided to slash their prices on their latest rev. That's enough there to kill the deal for most companies (although you'd have to wonder about the genius who negotiated the deal without price protection - oh, wait, they were probably laid off in the latest HP cuts).

And if you weren't paying attention, HP did announce, with their layoffs, a refocusing of the company on their 'core' markets (You know the cycle of business life, right? You have a company that deals in a certain area. Then decide you can't survive without branching out into different areas. Then after a while you decide that all those branches are hindering the company in some way, so you sell off or kill most of the branches to 'focus on your core business'. Then, after a while, they'll start branching out again. All companies do it. Apple has. And AT&T is a great example.)

So the iPod doesn't fit into their new grand scheme. Who cares? No one. Few cared when they sold the thing. Oh, and don't start expecting those HP iPods to suddenly go deep discount so they can unload them. There's no reason for that. Being that the iPod is still a strong seller, it'd be stupid for HP to sell them below Apple price, since they should be able to get that price without problem.

And I seriously doubt any of this was a threat from MS. That's just plain stupid. And there won't be another Antitrust case against MS, as the last one was useless and no one's going to spend the money on another one which will have the same pointless results (esp. with the GOP in charge, as we all know MS was all about innovation and great business until the antitrust stuff stifled their steal...er...innovation). Oh, and the DOJ is still monitoring MS based on the deal they cut, so I doubt they'd start another investigation.

This was due to the change of leadership at HP and a reevaluation of goals and products. It looks like the nascent cooperation between Apple and HP is over.

I'm sure HP sold more iPods than Dell. But iPod is a brand and an ecosystem of its own and consumers don't really care who is selling it, HP or Apple, just as long as they can get one.

Myself I own an HP PDA, I could never understand the whole IPOD thing...I mean my PDA plays MP3's with a 4 gig card (okay not great) but still I can surf the net, it has wireless and bluetooth, I can play games, why are people spending so much on an mp3 player that cannot do all this stuff when you can get a PDA for almost the same price but has a lot more features, I mean being able to even check your email or take notes or even draw on something that is the same price almost as a silly IPOD.. Just my 2 cents...

michelle, I'm glad you like your pda but the iPod is not a pda. I understand what you mean by paying a lot for a mp3 player that only does one thing. I'm not slamming your idea but you are comparing two different devices. PDA's, by sales numbers alone, appeal to geek professionals. I've got a laptop that can run circles around any PDA, and guess what... I can take it with me wherever I go. But getting back to HP's decision to not sell the iPod. In time, no one will care or even notice. Maybe HP has a dream device in the works. The likelihood of that is slim so I would say that they're just purging Fiorina's contributions to fit their new "strategy."

nevermind.

"current digital media strategy," is French for "sucking hard on the exhaust pipe of Apple's digital media strategy"

HP seems to have the R&D legacy (like Apple) and an awake + alert + oriented design team (like Apple) and the whole PC market laid out ahead of them - if they could leverage all those things they stand to do very well and make lots of money making stater-of-the-arter PCs than everyone else. They could be the Apple of the WinTel world. I'd give them credit for that, but they seem to be squandering this opportunity.

Jettison the Compaq hardware line (support only) and solidify the brand. Make PCs that are as impressive and easy to use as your camera/printer integration, sell them like you sell the printers (the Picture Book campaign as example) and make an "H-Life" software suite and out-Apple Apple. That I can forgive and maybe even applaud - but for the PC world to be touting the supremacy of the layer of fresh paint they applied to Windows and called it XP is just beneath contempt.

If Google can roll out Picasa, HP can certainly put together a suite to stand up to iLife.

"If Google can roll out Picasa, HP can certainly put together a suite to stand up to iLife."

Well considering they are hacking their R&D to bits and recently closed their advanced software research labs (sacking the staff) I'd say they are more likely to be chasing the Dell model than the Apple one.

If Google can roll out Picasa, HP can certainly put together a suite to stand up to iLife.

Yeah, that's what HP needs to do, mimic Google, who can't decide what they want to do so they get their fingers into everything (that has worked so well for all those other companies, like HP, for instance). Plus, I hve my doubts that Google actually created it, they more likely just bought it from someone else and finished it off (hey, like they do most everything else!). At this moment, Google has a brand-name recognition that impresses the geeks who think whatever Google does is great and they can do no wrong (for example, they still slaver over Gmail like google invented email or something, when all they did was give more away free then anyone else at the time - oooh, the innovation!). Once the bloom comes off the rose, people will see that google is just another company trying to make money off of them, just like Yahoo or MS or all the others (except Apple, of course, who exist just to make their customers happy!).