Sanita Clogs - The Original Danish Clog
History of the Sanita Clogs from Denmark.
Double down: a brief history of the most meaningless phrase in tech
"Double down." An expression that has its roots in gambling has now become the go-to phrase for tech CEOs when they want to allay fears that their company is flagging. The only thing is, the huge failures that usually follow the phrase have given the expression a comical connotation. It’s almost as if, when a CEO says its time to "double down," it really means their grand plans are sure to fail.
We’ve been hearing executives use the phrase for a number of years now, but with each new mention of it, it seems to become more laughable than before. Let’s take a look at some other big flops and a few examples where we’re still awaiting the outcome of the double down promise.
HP: "We are doubling down on webOS"
Perhaps the most glaring example of double down failure was back in 2010, when HP senior vice president Brian Humphries said the company was "doubling down on webOS" shortly after its $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm. At the outset, it seemed that HP had grandiose plans for webOS — it even mentioned putting the mobile OS on printers — but a year after the purchase of Palm, the only things HP had to show were a couple of unimpressive smartphones and an equally disappointing tablet. In fact, the HP TouchPad was such a failure that it was only on shelves for six weeks in the summer of 2011 before HP pulled the plug on it and cleared out inventory through the now infamous fire sale. Shortly after discontinuing the TouchPad, HP disbanded its webOS hardware division and then said it would focus its efforts on software alone. Even that didn’t last very long — by the end of the year, new HP CEO Meg Whitman announced that webOS was being open-sourced. Though HP would continue to staff a small development team for it, the end of the platform’s commercial relevance became quite apparent to all.
