HP to App Developers; "We're sorry, here's some extra cash!" 65
We direct your attention to a problem that has been causing a bit of worry for webOS app developers over the last month. For a while now, developers have been looking at their sales reports with the Dev Relations Team and getting a bit puzzled - the app numbers just didn't seem to be adding up correctly. After all, the payments that they were receiving from HP were actually less than the numbers that were showing in their developer profiles. Something was definitely going on. How would you feel if you were getting paid less than what you thought you were supposed to make?
Well, HP has solved the problem, much to the rejoicing of the development community, and is doing something special to show appreciation to their app-building army. According to the statement they've published (which we quoted below), the payment that developers received was actually based on the real sales numbers, while the reported numbers in the developer portal were incorrect, causing a lot of confusion.
So what is HP going to do? They're going to send more money to the devs that were affected to match the numbers that were reported incorrectly. That means that if a June sales report gave numbers that were $100 more than the check the developer received in the mail, HP will send another payment for $100 to the app developer to make up for the misleading reports.
Call that what you will - for us it's just an example of good developer relation skills. HP has definitely made things right with their developers this week.
Dear webOS developer:We identified an issue that caused incorrect download and revenue share figures to be displayed in June’s Monthly Sales Report on the developer portal. As a result, some developers received payments that were different from what was reported. Please be assured that the monthly payments you receive are based on the correct download figures. However, we appreciate your patience and have decided to send developers an additional payment to match the reported amount for June.These payments will be applied to developers’ accounts over the next few weeks. We apologize for any inconvenience.Sincerely,Your HP webOS Developer Relations TeamDear webOS developer:
We identified an issue that caused incorrect download and revenue share figures to be displayed in June’s Monthly Sales Report on the developer portal. As a result, some developers received payments that were different from what was reported. Please be assured that the monthly payments you receive are based on the correct download figures. However, we appreciate your patience and have decided to send developers an additional payment to match the reported amount for June.
These payments will be applied to developers’ accounts over the next few weeks. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Sincerely,
Your HP webOS Developer Relations Team
Source: webOSRoundup;
65 Comments
That's pure class by HP.
Taking the high road will always yield loyalty, I believe.
:)
It would have nice if HP had taken the high road with their customers this Feb. HP taking the low road and ignoring their customers who where promised an update has destroyed the loyalty of many once rabid WebOS/Palm fans. When my contract is up with Sprint you can count me out on getting a Pre3 (if it ever comes out). If HP would have handled this more directly and put out an official web doctor there would be a lot more satisfied Pre/Pixi owners drooling over a Pre3 rather running into the arms of apple or google.
Good on ya, HP!
Incredible !! Top Marks to HP
You gotta give it to them when they get it right. Hopefully this becomes a trend and they continue improving and owning up to (and fixing) bugs.
great, now go bring netflix
And PlantsVsZombies
And Soundhound/Shazam
And WordsWithFriends
And DoodleJump
And Swype (with a w)
And IMDb
And QRCodes
And LastPass (browser plugin - not just cut/paste)
And Amazon MP3
Need HP to inquire Devs (and offer whatever help/insentives are necessary) of these apps for updates (to TP format them) to:
Engadget
DrPodder
Pandora
Evernote
Flixster
Fandago
ACE Casino
All we need is an announcement with details about specific apps. At this point, we are really good at waiting (ok maybe just mediocre at it) and as long as we have confirmation that something is coming, we can read Pivot a few more times until our [whichever app is important to me] app gets released or updated.
"The payment that developers received was actually based on the real sales numbers, while the reported numbers in the developer portal were incorrect"
"Call it as you wish..."
Well, I'll call it lame & embarrassing, or perhas embarrassingly lame.
Good for them to have show some sense and good recovery. But just another unprofessional blunder, that needs to be recovered from.
Constantly trying to make things right means?
...means that they are constantly failing, and attempt to sort out the resulting mess later on?
Clearly HP should have just told them they were counting wrong.
clearly, HP should just have NOT made such a substantial, embarrassing error. Clearly, they should have been able to implement fecking individual sales report correctly, and test it appropriately.
And CLEARLY, the heads should continue to keep rolling in HPalm GBU, until they stop making this kind of feckups, and start making any sense with their efforts.
But it will probably not happen, it is too late for that.
A company that makes calculators admit that.
Well, great I guess nothing well ever meet your satisfaction or ever make you happy eh? Go join the "other gang" over there!
I assume that above means you do not agree with me? Fine with me, although next time you might want to write it in less convoluted and more direct way, you are very hard to decipher with your message, someone might get a fleeting impression you are getting personal.
There are many things that make me happy (if we change the topic of that discussion to my humble self) - but yes, unprofessional, embarrassing blunders are not one them, true.
Hard to believe and company that wants to sell enterprise hardware and software, can't even make a sales report works right.
But, I'll applaud Leo for finally opening his change purse. Baby steps Leo, you finally recognize the remnants of your developer base as an HP resource. Probably getting to be too late to make good with users, as they've bought other tablets, phones and service plans. But, you gotta start somewhere to have a fleeting chance.
I know there have been lots of comments in the past (related to various topics) about entitlement (or lack thereof), etc... / glad to see the good news.
-Were the Developers entitled to this extra money? No
-Did HP Make a mistake? Yes
-Was HP obligated to 'make things right' in this context? No
Did HP go above & beyond -- owning up to their mistake & using this as an opportunity to give an extra boost to the WebOS lifeblood? Absolutely.
Good on'ya HP!
They were not obligated to report to developers their correct sales numbers? What kind of people do you work with?
They were not "obligated" to go above and beyond and give developers extra money for their trouble, but they have to rebuild their reputation somehow.
They were not obligated to pay the difference for a system reporting bug that was corrected. They made the choice to pay that difference for the trouble.
Are you sure? Do you have a Dev contract? Does it say that HP is covered by errors in their own systems? If I was a big developer I'd negotiate on that. I wouldnt want to be at the mercy of HP's reporting errors, either over payment or underpayment.
I was considering reporting the correct numbers as falling into "making things right", but like I said, they needed to do something else to rebuild reputation (and trust).
thumbs up HP
how about;
"We're sorry for releasing the veer first."
"we're sorry for not focusing on phones you guys want"
"We're sorry for releasing a tablet with lesser hardware at a high price."
I also can't picture many apps being sold at this time while people are in limbo if they are going to switch to a different OS or not based on the carriers & price of the pre 3 or any other new webos phone.
Wait...so are they getting extra money? Not really clear on what happened here. Are they
A) Paying them the money that they were supposed to be paid in the first place, but weren't due to an HP screwup or...
B) Paying them extra money ON TOP of the money they were due to receive in the first place?
If it's A, uh....not sure what we're applauding. if it's B, good for them. Classy move.
It's B.
I shall re-iterate, then.
Very classy move.
Actually, I'd suggest it was a.
From what I can tell, Devs were told they had sold x amount of apps, but they received money for less.
HP says that this is because HP provided them with a wrong report about the number of apps sold.
If I am told that x number of apps was sold, I would expect to receive x * (cost of app - HP cut).
Therefore, it is HP's **** up for not reporting the right number of app sales and the devs received what they should have been paid in the first place based on the sales reports they received.
However, it would be interesting to see the contract, I'd imagine HP have it worded so their asses are covered in this situation. If so, it is nice of them of not just stick to the contract and **** the devs completely.
Would be interesting to know how many apps are being sold at the moment. I can't imagine many.
Yeah, they can be covered legally, but building a bad reputation can do much more damage than a lawsuit. Just look at the mess Amazon has with their app store, despite the fact that they were covered legally.
Again, HP has no clue what they are doing. Great, pay people whatever to make up for the fact that your Mobile division has NO CLUE what they are doing.
I swear, HP must run itself at this point because all these human errors are a joke.
Minus me!
Yea, yea, yea. Go join the "other gang" at some other site.
My contract that HP bailed on a year ago is up in 2 months, and then I probably will, until then you are stuck with me.
Can you at least get another name then? You are nothing like GlennBeck.
Cool story Bro!
"HP has definitely made things right with their developers this week."
it's really good to hear that they took action to rectify this problem as soon as possible, and for that i applaude them.
now, with that said, when are they going to finally 'make things right' for legacy users?
They released a 2.1 version for the Pre on the few carriers that would allow it that the internals team (which HP had donated funds and equipment to) were then able to turn into a meta-doctor for most of the other Pres and some of the Pre 2s that had not received the 2.1 update. They then offered a $50 rebate on the TouchPad to people that had previously purchased a "legecy" device.
What more do you expect from them to 'make it right' for you???
The first one is not really "making things right". How much of their user base benefits from homebrew? It looks like a lot if you hang around here, but we're only a small fraction of webOS users.
The second one is just a marketing stunt. Best Buy (and everyone else) chopped $50 off BOTH versions of the Touchpad. Are they "making it right"? Oh, they forgot to make it exclusive to "legacy" device owners, so it's not "making it right", it's just marketing.
No, they didn't offer $50 rebate on the TouchPad. They offered to up-sell folks on the 32GB instead of 16GB for $50.
A 16GB version is also a TouchPad and they won't give you a one cent discount on those.
Geez Orion, if your neighbor's St. Benard took a dump in the middle of your front yard would you say this to your neighbor?
"Thanks, for the nutrients!"
WebOS victims had to give HP $600 to receive HP's apology. That's pretty darned sad.
Nothing + Nothing = Nothing
yeah, that is probably how much it costs HP to "rectify", that's why they are doing this.
Now... Apologize to the Sprint Pre owners and make it right for us.
You're going to have to talk to Sprint for that.
I did talk to Sprint about how HP didn't deliver on their promises. Sprint said they'd make it right. I'm satisfied.
"show appreciation to their app-building army"
I wouldn't call it an army.
Well they are an @#$ kicking Militia at the very least. Anything to make these guys happy and potentially grow the Dev base is awesome.
Kudos to HP for stepping up and being accountable and paying the devs extra.
It's unfortunate that the mistake happened.
The tool was probably reporting downloads versus purchases. So every time someone switched devices, updated, or doctored, it appeared to the developers as if it were a sale.
Ultimately developers should have reporting tools that show new unique sales, versus updates, versus re-downloads possibly broken down by device. Then they could see if that new app that got a lot of initial downloads people failed to update or transfer to their other devices. This would tell them whether to invest further in that app to drive sales or abandon it for a different app.
It does do that. The problem is that the download numbers were off.
"It's unfortunate that the mistake happened.
"
..no, it is "unfortunate" if you get hit by a frozen pee, falling from the airplane. That story is not "unfortunate", it rather is "highly unprofessional".
Good on HP for going beyond the call for the developers. I wish that I had been able to contribute to the sales numbers but I can't in good faith invest in more apps until I have evidence the platform's future is aligned with mine.
That means a Pre3 on Verizon or Sprint. That means document editing & a real RDP client on the TouchPad. And because HP has thusfar failed to entice me to stay with webOS that also means some new attempt to "make it right" (or something to keep me spending money on the platform).
Article's title: HP to App Developers; "We're sorry, here's some extra cash!"
quote from post: "the payment that developers received was actually based on the real sales numbers...
How's that extra cash? Does not compute...
"However, we appreciate your patience and have decided to send developers an *additional* payment to *match* the reported amount for June."
Still not extra cash. It is the cash they should have been paid based on the reports.
As you correctly quoted: an additional payment to match the reported amount for June.
Still not extra cash. That would be cash above the reported amount for june... not to match.
I don't know about you, but the wording is crystal clear to me. What you would have gotten, they are giving to you. They are also giving you extra, an amount that matches what you already would have gotten.
To me, "extra" cash is equivalent cash "above the reported amount".
The $ received didn't match the sale numbers. The sale numbers were incorrect. They got paid the correct amount. So HP paid for the incorrect sale numbers. That's the extra cash.
let's say you worked 30 hours one week. on your paycheck you were properly paid for 30 hours, yet the stub with the check said you worked 35 hours. would you really expect the company to pay you for the extra 5 hours you didn't really work, just because the stub said so in error?
yet that's what hp has done... they said 'sorry for the confusion, we'll just go ahead and pay you for the extra 5 hours you didn't really work'.
that's extra cash any way you slice it.
...taking into account that in this case the only way to know how many "hours/week" you have worked is that "stub with the check", it is pretty substantial for them to ensure that this thing is correct, and their "workers" can trust in what it says, don't 'cha think...
Not exactly sure what happened, but if the end result is giving Dev's more money, that's very good news. Keep these guys happy!
Well, it is not a very good news, not at all. If devs cannot trust their payment reporting software.
It is like saying that factory recalls on faulty car brakes are a very good thing, because you are getting new brakes for free.
I too would love a QR code app....but what's the point? There's no camera on the back of the TouchPad with which to use it.
How much effort would it take to bring the QR code in-front of the TouchPad?
If you're talking about in a store, who carries a TouchPad around while shopping?
No negativity, just curious :)
But the Touchpad camera is only 1.3MP. I'm not sure, but I think that might be pushing it for recognizing QR codes.
Also, I'm not sure if the camera has autofocus. If it doesn't, that makes recognizing QR codes even more difficult.
I can't help but think of th "DP" oil disaster on South Park..."We're sorry".
I know everyone wants the complaints to go away, but sometimes these articles hit sore spots. Saying "HP has definitely made things right.." just opens up the wounds again. I know people will complain anyway, but it's being invited by the writers of these articles with the wording.
Wish they (hp) made as much effort to make things right for the people who buy their products too. Funny how the early adopter coupon offer expired just days prior to the $100 off sale hp is having on the TPad.
Not really that funny. Glad I passed on that worthless coupon. Not sure I would waste money on a TP when they eventually land in the clearance shelf. They way HP treated us Pre owners stings too much to ride that train again.