HP & the educational market?

[rprosperi]

These models were intended for the educational markets:

38G, 39G, 40G, 39g+, 39gs, 40gs, 39gII and Prime.

[Opinion]
Though HP had broadened their marketing efforts from Professional/Engineering sales to consumer electronics sales as a result of the success of their early calculators, and in the 80s were moving even more this way with their exploding computer and printer products, the educational market required totally different business tactics, sales channels, margins and committing to long-term strategies (e.g. seeding textbook authors with units) all of which seemed to either not be well understood by HP or possibly not deemed "worth it" at the time.

It's all very clear now looking back on it, but in the late 80's when these trends were just emerging, there was no way to imagine just how much the professional demand would decline and the educational market would grow.

Also, who could have guessed any of the current players (HP, TI, Sharp, Casio) would dare to maintain the same model at the same price for 10+ years, while literally every other product category had prices declining up to 10%/year while the products were improving. Stubborn teachers who don't want to learn new educational tools is hardly a trend one might have predicted.
[\Opinion]