As the Apple Turns: Scene 4884: This Am Bizarro Contest (8/26/04)

This Am Bizarro Contest (8/26/04)

Speaking of Hewlett-Packard, we have to say, it's probably the only major Wintel manufacturer for which we hold any real respect at the moment. Not that we like their Wintels, mind you-- we really don't know anything about them at all, except that they run Windows, which is all we need to know. But we've always liked the company's printers, from our circa-1994 LocalTalk-networked DeskWriter 520 (to which we can still print in Classic) all the way up to our current LaserJet 1012 (an honest-to-goshness laser printer that we picked up brand new for all of $119) and Color LaserJet 2550L (which, technically, we still only expect to like, since we haven't had time to pull it out of its box yet). And the company had the good taste to partner with Apple to sell rebranded iPods instead of cranking out its own dorky WMA-based ripoff like Dell did. Besides, who are we supposed to like better? Sony? Points for style, but that ATRAC3-only "iPod-killer" is a deal-breaker. Gateway? Please.

And the reasons not to hate HP with a burning passion keep growing all the time. Faithful viewer torn80 alerted us to a development that's both weird and rather endearing: the company is currently holding an "Extreme Makeover" contest (which has evidently been running since early June, but we're just hearing about it now), whereby entrants must cruise through an online demo of the company's new professional-class DesignJet 130 printer, choose one of the images presented therein, and "use the photo-manipulation or illustrative tools and techniques of [their] choice" to "create a work that demonstrates power of color." Once the art is done, it gets shuttled off to HP in JPEG or PDF format alongside a "50-word explanation or concept statement" to be judged equally on creativity and originality by a panel "including renowned photographer (and former designer) Joel Meyerowitz." Not exactly your "anyone with Autofill can enter" sweepstakes-type giveaway.

But if the contest is strictly for designers, so's the prize package. Get this: the grand prize consists of, of all things, a 15-inch PowerBook, a Power Mac G5, a 20-inch iMac, and a slew of software and accessories including no fewer than three HP printers, a digital camera, an LCD projector, a Herman Miller office chair, Adobe Creative Suite Premium, and the all-important iPod mini. And if the notion of HP giving away a bunch of Macs instead of something else (like, oh, let's see... computers that it makes itself) strikes you as a little odd, you're by no means alone.

So why dish the Macs instead of giving away a fleet of Presarios or whatever? Because HP is apparently smart enough to realize that it's never going to get diehard Mac fans in the print and design industry to buy its Wintels, so it only makes sense for the company to focus on winning their business for printers instead. Still, much as we like it, the idea of HP giving away Macs just feels... well, the best technical term is probably "oogy." It'd be like Apple rationally deciding that the enterprise market is never going to shell out the bucks to put Macs on every desktop, and then giving away a flock of cheap Wintel client systems in a contest in order to sell more Xserves; it might make sense in a strictly logical fashion, but it's still a pretty creepy thought.

HP giving away Macs, though, that we suppose we can live with. We could live with it even more if the company gave them away to us. Carly, are you out there? You know, our birthday's coming up...

SceneLink (4884)

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From the writer/creator of AtAT, a Pandemic Dad Joke taken WAYYYYYY too far

The above scene was taken from the 8/26/04 episode:

August 26, 2004: Apple's stock skyrockets again, and not for much of a reason. Meanwhile, Hewlett-Packard holds a contest in which the grand prize is a trio of Macs, and despite Apple's insistence to the contrary, there's clearly something decidedly un-random about the iPod's Shuffle function...

Other scenes from that episode:

4883: And Use A Plastic Spatula (8/26/04) Longtime viewers know that we here at the AtAT compound know roughly as much about our stock portfolio as we do about the Krebs cycle: we know it exists, and that it's probably sort of important, but for the most part we just assume that if we leave well enough alone and don't think about it too hard it'll take care of itself...
4885: Randomizer Of The Gods (8/26/04) Hey, look, Apple released an iPod with a color screen that shows album art and has a big, wacky pull-handle on the side! Oh, wait, never mind-- it's just some designer at the New York Times having a bit of Photoshop fun...

Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast...


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