Write a 9 page essay on Hewlett-Packard: The Flight of the Kittyhawk. Report also includes what kind of disruptive factors this innovation made in the disk drive industry and why HP was unable to succeed with the launch of this product. Final segment of this report includes some thoughts and suggestions on how HP can be successful in this project.It was Hewlett-Packard HP3013/3014 which was nicknamed as Kittyhawk. This was one of the smallest disk drives introduced by Hewlett-Packard Company. “It was an amazing little creature”, which offered storage space of 20 and 40 megabytes. (HP Kittyhawk 1.3” Microdrive para 1). The Hewlett model 3013 had capacity of 20MB and model 3014 can hold 40MB. Both of these models have got IDE interface. “IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) is a standard electronic interface used between a computer motherboards data paths or bus and the computers disk storage devices.” (Definition-IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) para 1).

This innovation has got number of unique technologies, such as an accelerometer is built into it which will protect the hard drive when it falls. Manufacturer of this small hard drive claimed that if it falls from 3-foot nothing will happen to the disk and data contained in it. Despite all these characteristics, this product was a big market flop. In other words “The Kittyhawk was a spectacular failure.” (One Inch No Clinch for IBM Storage Gurus para 13). It could not make any kind of impact or influence in the market. As a result of this, HP discontinued this product from market. Many sorts of uncertainties prevailed during the launch of Kittyhawk project. These uncertainties could be termed as internal and external uncertainties. Internal uncertainties such as some sorts of management problems or issues happened during the launch of Kittyhawk project. Business model implemented by the management team was not so attractive and it was inefficient “to serve low-end new markets.” (Hewlett-Packard)