Hewlett-Packard (HP) announced on Monday, Aug 1, 2005, HP has decided to stop shipping HP branded iPod media players, which they started selling HP branded iPods in August 2004. Anyway, all warranties on iPods sold previously will still be honoured. HP plans to keep selling the music players until its current stock is depleted, which is expected to be around late September 2005.

Quoted:
“We have decided that selling the iPod does not fit within our current digital entertainment strategy,” HP consumer technology spokesman Ross Camp said.

However, Ross Camp declined to provide further explanation about the reasons for the contract cancellation. Besides, he denied this move will affect HP’s overall entertainment strategy as well. On the other hand, this contract cancellation will result a decline up to 5% of overall iPod sales according to data from Apple.

The iPod models HP is selling are identical to the ones that Apple sells, expect HP is offering a 12-month warranty while Apple offers only 90 days. Unfortunately, HP often lagged behind Apple in offering the latest models. For instance, it took the vendor nearly six months to offer the iPod Photo after Apple unveiled the product.