HP Counts on the Popularity of the 12c
If you know that 5 Enter 4 + 2 Enter 1+ ÷ equals 3, odds are there’s an HP 12c on your desk.
In the 23 years since the 12c debuted, Hewlett-Packard Co. has sold millions of the financial calculator, making it one of the oldest and most popular electronic devices ever made. The 12c -- able to figure net present value, depreciation and amortization -- has been an essential tool and status symbol for businesspeople around the world since 1981.
And it’s tough. Part of the legend of the 12c is that it has survived trips through a snowblower and the digestive tract of a hippopotamus. Not even the 12c’s off-putting equation entry system -- reverse Polish notation rather than the more straightforward algebraic method -- has damped its popularity.
Here’s a quick math lesson. Regular algebraic expression puts operators between numbers, like this (5+4)÷(2+1)=3. The parentheses tell the solver to perform those operations first. But most simple calculators would solve the equation as 5.5 because they execute each operation in sequence.
Reverse Polish notation, a derivation of an approach developed in the 1920s by mathematician Jan Lukasiewicz, places operators after numbers, eliminating the need for parentheses to determine the order of an equation.
After a few tries, it becomes fairly intuitive, says Fred Valdez, who runs HP’s Calculator Division, a San Diego-based group of 15 that develops and oversees the company’s line of scientific and financial calculators. Valdez said the $95 12c remained profitable for HP, even though it had received only minor computational and design upgrades over the last 23 years.
Question: Who buys the 12c?
Answer: The vast majority are professionals: the finance community, real estate agents, bankers. And in many cases the 12c is seen as a status symbol. If you look at different parts of the world, for example Latin America, if you have a 12c that means you’re important, that means you’ve made it, you’re an accomplished financial professional.
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Q: What’s behind its popularity?
A: Obviously we’ve received incredible, positive feedback. It’s exactly what our customers wanted. We’ve made it a bit faster in certain areas, but the unit for all practical purposes remains the same as it was back in 1981. One of the things we have done is we’ve introduced a 12c Platinum, which introduces algebraic [entry] in addition to reverse Polish notation.
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Q: To ordinary people, isn’t reverse Polish notation a turnoff?
A: Interestingly enough, most colleges and grade schools teach algebraic as a way of doing math, but intuitively RPN is a lot more straightforward, and I think once people use it and understand it, they will realize that RPN is truly an easier entry mode.
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Q: So why did HP add the 12c Platinum model?
A: It was basically in response to the market. [People said,] ‘We like the 12c, but what about algebraic?’ Algebraic became the battle cry for a lot of our target audience. So what we’re doing is giving customers a choice. No longer are we fighting the religious battle between RPN and algebraic. We’re giving the option to choose either.
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Q: HP essentially created the hand-held calculator market.
A: HP indeed was the first manufacturer to introduce a hand-held scientific calculator. That was in 1972. We were basically the grandfathers of the calculator business.
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Q: How was the 12c developed?
A: We really did our homework on this product. It was Marketing 101: We went out and quite simply listened to our customers, asked specifically what they wanted in a product, spoke in detail with a lot of national boards, and asked specifically what they wanted in a tool. They brought that feedback and created a product with a rich feature set with a sweet price point that’s still very, very profitable and very, very demanded by the market today, 23 years later.
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Q: In the computer and consumer electronics industries, the public is used to frequent improvement and turnover of products. Hasn’t that been an incentive for HP to update the 12c and give it a new name?
A: That’s been the interesting part. We still have a lot of people continuing to buy the [older] 12c, and we’re going to continue to provide that product as required by the market. The 12c Platinum is appealing to a new market audience.
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Q: How has the market for calculators changed over the years, especially given the rise of personal digital assistants?
A: Demand for the calculator as a stand-alone tool continues to remain strong, even with the introduction of palmtops and laptops. There’s a unique experience with a device that you can put in your pocket, that you can whip out anytime, anyplace. If you’re out having lunch or dinner with clients or business partners, you can bring out your 12c and start cranking numbers right there. You can’t necessarily do that with a laptop.
The other thing is that there’s a kinetic experience with our 12c. We have what we call the ‘rotating click’ keyboard experience, the response mechanism when you press the keys. People look for that; they seek it, they demand it, so it’s more of a personal experience with a personal tool.
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Q: PDAs have rapidly been getting better and better, with sharper screens and multiple functions such as storing photos and music, while calculators seem to have stayed pretty much the same.
A: There have been some improvements in the backlit display over the years. One of the other things we need to look at is that in many cases you can’t use a PDA to perform calculator functions in an exam setting, and certainly one of our key target audiences is the academic world. [Students] will require a stand-alone calculator because they can’t bring in their PDAs and preprogram answers and scenarios. That’s also contributed to the need for a stand-alone unit.
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Q: What’s in the future of calculators?
A: I think what you’ll see down the road potentially is maybe more personal learning devices or tools, where the calculator will be able to do more than just calculating. There may be a meshing between the calculator and the PDA; there may be a sweet spot in the middle. It will still be a calculator with a lot more functions and a lot more usability. But you can’t make it too sophisticated, or else it will not be allowed in the classroom. By the same token if you continue to add to it you’ll really dilute the value of what it is: It’s a simple tool to perform simple tasks, and the requirement remains strong for that.
