It was a different era till 2019. The contrast, though, gets most glaring in the computing world. The outsiders label the period as BC—Before Covid—which was typically characterised as an excessively sedate period of growth where ‘old desktops’ struggled in ICUs, and ‘young laptops’ crawled like infants. Ketan Patel tells us what was right, and not-so-right, in the PC (personal computer) world till 2019. He begins with the plusses. “HP has always been a credible brand,” contends the managing director of HP India. The brand, he underlines, had a huge credibility, vast presence and great performance. As far as the overall market was concerned, PC happened to be a stable business, India was looked upon as a promising country, and the American brand, which entered India in 1990, occupied pole position till 2018. “The journey was still credible, not incredible,” says Patel.