Last week, I attended the HP Amplify Partner Conference with CEOs from AMD, Google, Intel, Nvidia, and Qualcomm. Each of these CEOs praised HP's efforts, but Jensen Huang stood out because he aggressively promoted HP's new workstations and his PC product line, which he had encouraged HP to build. .
One of the common arguments is why is Dell so well-regarded when it doesn't have an AI solution and is far behind HP in terms of security, partners, sustainability, and AI? That's what it was.
At the end of the event, one of my favorite actors, Ryan Reynolds, joined us virtually. While Reynolds was filming, his partner brought up the Green Lantern movie on stage, which Reynolds reportedly regrets. Green Lantern had a bad reputation, but I loved it so I paid attention to it.
HP and Dell realized that the problem often happens when product marketing and the product itself become disconnected, or when the wrong people believe the product is meant for them.
Previously, I elegantly argued that this is a mismatch between form and function. Based on what was presented at Amplify, I would like to name this problem the “Reynolds Green Lantern Conundrum.” This is a wide-ranging issue, so we'll explore it in detail this week.
Finally, I'll conclude with my “Product of the Week.” HP's new gaming laptops are the most sustainable, advanced and attractive gaming laptops on the market. HP Omen Transcend 14 inch laptop.
IBM, Dell, Form Over Function
When I worked at IBM, and after I left internal audit and worked in marketing, we actively told governments not to buy competing products because they had better products. I was concerned about this. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but we ended up wasting the entire effort and nothing really came out of it, let alone “something better.”
I met with the head of marketing and pointed out that I thought this was incredibly unethical and probably unhealthy. Because not only do governments have no sense of humor when they lie, but they can make your life a living hell if they're caught lying. And it is very difficult to hide that the promised product is discontinued. IBM is one of the most ethical companies in the world, he said. This is marketing! ”
I spent much of my advanced education in marketing and earned a degree in marketing, but I can tell you that's not true. Shortly thereafter, I resigned and her CMO (with some help from me) was fired. But it struck me that many people, especially engineers, equate marketing with lying, which usually ends badly for the customer first and then for the company.
If you can provide a solution before people find out you're not telling the truth, you won't have to do this. While this approach has been successful in several high-profile cases, it has failed in Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, and suggests that “fake it until you make it” has some pretty serious downsides if you fail to implement it. It was shown.
It's bad for a CEO to do this, but it can be even worse if a company executive does this because the CEO may believe the lie and be held accountable for it.
AMD/HP and function over form
Problems occur even more frequently in our industry. Some companies pivot too much because they fear the first problem. Even though they have a huge competitive advantage, they don't want to market it too aggressively because they're worried they're overselling it.
These companies are underperforming financially. This is because this is not a “build it and they will come” market. If you don't sell your benefits, they won't be appreciated. Years ago, AMD came under a lot of fire for over-hyping poorly performing products and nearly went out of business, so now they're understandably gun-shy.
But when it comes to competing with Intel in the workstation space, HP, which has made significant acquisitions from both AMD and Intel, says AMD offers better battery life and performance for the same price. .
We saw this play out when Lenovo brought AMD's superior consumer Threadripper processors into its workstations and captured the top end of the workstation market from Dell. Engineers tend to do their due diligence when purchasing workstations, and I was surprised by how good this part was.
AMD's image is that it is a cheaper, lower performance alternative to Intel. However, this part is neither cheap nor inferior in performance. At the Amplify conference, HP announced the AI-focused Threadripper workstation that runs on Nvidia graphics, and Nvidia's CEO touted it. (Advice: Never talk after Jensen Huang. He's great on stage.)
Windows 95, Jensen Huang, AI
One of the interesting things Huang said is that HP's AI-focused PC and workstation product line and marketing efforts around it are the Windows 95 moment that changed PCs forever. was. And I also agree with him on one big difference.
Windows 95's original launch budget was $400 million, and people lined up around the block to buy the product. Microsoft has since cut its budget because it couldn't keep up with such demand, but it still emphasizes what's possible when marketing efforts match the product.
All of the top tech CEOs on stage suggested that this AI effort is a game-changer, and given the current state of the technology, has the potential to be far greater than Windows 95 was at the time. I did. However, the same demand has not been created.
They typically claim that using the latest technology increases productivity by around 10%. Wharton conducted a study using previous generation AI that showed that rate to be over 80% of his. This means that companies that effectively implement AI will outpace their competitors faster than they can react, unless they also implement AI.
These are literally life-or-death products for a company, but people think of them as a typical annual product cycle, even though they aren't.
Unique issues that HP is addressing
The problem with all AI products is that too few people understand AI, including the vendors who make it and especially those who sell it. The CEOs of Nvidia and Google both pointed this out on stage.
Huang is very excited about HP because it heeded that warning. Because the plan started with in-house training, HP is becoming an expert in AI and has already implemented AI internally or is implementing it widely. HP is also rolling out certification and training programs to ensure that its channels (85% of which are indirect) and customers are adequately trained.
That means we have the hardware, services, software, training, and certifications. This coverage ensures that HP customers will not be like most customers whose AI implementations fail because one or more of these factors are not present.
Summary: Ryan Reynolds' Green Lantern Challenge
I think very few people have seen “Green Lantern,'' so I'll use “Dune'' as an example.
“Dune'' was a huge success, but the older movie “Dune,'' which wasn't as successful, was better. The difference wasn't in how the films were made, but in the lack of connection between marketing and content.
For marketing to work, it needs to be involved from the beginning and have some say in the content. When marketing is done right and staffed correctly (too many people with marketing titles don't know marketing), campaigns build on the knowledge of their audience.
This same information should inform the production of the film, allowing the two to form organically. A true hit is only when the audience, or in the case of AI, the buyer, gets excited about the product and the product lives up to the hype.
If I had my wish, the marketing team would be involved in the product from its inception to launch to ensure that promotional activities match the product's potential and that the product matches the demand that marketing creates. There will be ethical scrutiny.
The challenge is that marketers, not engineers, ensure a product's success, yet they are often ignored during product creation.
What you need to do to fix this is to first build a marketing campaign, test it, and then create a product that matches the campaign, rather than building a product from scratch, which is commonly done. I have often thought that building a Then we use marketing to promote it.
Ironically, this may be what the latest “Deadpool” movie also does (I'm a big fan). I'm looking forward to seeing how it works out and hope for a Hal Jorden “Deadpool” crossover in the future with Ryan Reynolds playing both roles. AI could make that possible.
HP Omen Transcend 14 inch laptop
What makes a perfect PC? It's different for everyone. In my case, it's his HP Elite Folio based on Qualcomm. For others, it's the HP Omen Transcend 14-fb0097nr, which marries great performance with a massive sustainability story (many of the products are made from high-quality recycled materials) and his HyperX keyboard. It could be something like a notebook. This keyboard really caught my eye because my hands often slipped from the Navigation keys while gaming, leading to my inevitable death.
This notebook is equipped with Intel's latest AI-enhanced (NPU) Core 9 Ultra processor, an impressive Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card, and comes at an affordable (for a gaming notebook) price of $2,250.
HP Omen Transcend looks pretty good in person. It is colored in Shadow Black aluminum and weighs a reasonable 3.6 pounds, which is very light for a gaming notebook.
Omen Transcend Laptop 14-fb0097nr (Image credit: HP)
If you don't need RTX graphics, move to the Intel ARC graphics system and get up to 13 hours of video playback for movies and light work, which is impressive for a gaming notebook.
This product provides the foundation for future AI content, including AI-driven NPCs, which I'm personally looking forward to. And as more desktop AI products come to market, it also provides a great platform to play, learn AI, and impress your friends by being the first to get AI support than everyone you know. .
Granted, initially, many of the things that use this AI subsystem are in early development stages, but this product is one of the first to be fully AI-enabled. So the HP Omen Transcend Laptop 14-inch is my product of the week.
