HP tried to build a lot of hype around its new product announcements yesterday, catering an event so glossy it felt like being folded inside an issue of Vogue magazine. And the company has a lot to announce—maybe so much that in the end, it was hard to figure out what the company wanted to communicate.

Among the items lost in the, ahem, shuffle, was a new HP mobile device intended to compete with the iPhone. And while HP showed its ambitions, it also showed it still can't compete with Apple when it comes to staging big events.

The launch event was held at the Skylight Studio, an 18,000 square foot event space located in lower Manhattan, with searchlights, red carpet and a red velvet rope outside. As if it wasn't exclusive-seeming enough, I spotted a trio of HP executives who couldn't get in because they didn't have specially-made stickers on their jackets.

The place was filled—and I mean so-packed-you-couldn't-walk-around filled—with beautifully coiffed people stepping gingerly around displays of personal computers, office desktops, mobile devices, gaming stations, not to mention camera crews, sound engineers, electrical cables and a couple of actual race cars located in the rear. People elbowed each other helplessly around horseshoe-shaped wet bars that stopped serving when the "event" really began. I overheard one HP exec complain, "so much for no-shows."

Like Gaul, the event was divided into three parts. Parts one and three involved HP executives taking turns coming to the podium to rave about the minutiae of their new or improved products.

Those parts didn't get anyone's attention, but part two was a different story. That revolved around the company's new branding initiative, for which David Roman, HP's marketing chief, deserves a lot of credit. The campaign is built around HP's "The Computer is Personal Again" slogan; you've probably seen the TV ads featuring celebrities demonstrating how they use HP computers.

Those same celebrities, including Serena Williams, Petra Nemcova and Paul Teutul, Sr., the burly guy from American Chopper, strutted up to the podium (a tiny speck in the cavernous room) like models at a fashion show, and then stood there like winners at an awards show. The celebs (there were six of them in all) showed off designs commissioned by HP, which in turn donated prize money to the celebs' favorite charities in lieu of paying them honorariums.

An HP executive told me that another bonus for the celebrities is they get to associate themselves with the awesome HP brand. Like Serena Williams and Vera Wang really need that kind of exposure.

(Better still, HP referred to these folks as "achievers." Hasn't anyone at HP seen The Big Lebowski, which mocks—among many, many other things—the condescension of fatuous "Big Lebowski" types sponsoring "Little Lebowski Urban Achievers?")

In true awards ceremony style, each of the "achievers" got to kiss the others on the cheek upon arriving on the dais. Teutul brought a small posse along with him, each of whom took his sweet time smooching the supermodel on both cheeks.

Once the "achievers" had finished manhandling Petra and Serena, HP executives went back to introducing new or improved products. They tried to convey a sense of excitement, but despite the plethora of HP screens and amplification, they couldn't compete with a hundred pairs of whispering lips. Even Rahul Sood, who closed part three by introducing Blackbird 002, the company's new desktop for gamers and enthusiasts, couldn't get much of a rise from the audience, many of whom had removed their shoes to soothe their aching feet and were wandering around looking for food.

Outside, limo drivers and bodyguards milled around in a state of low-key anxiety as attendees tried to get pictures of themselves posing with Serena or Petra before scurrying off in search of dinner.

Like Caesar, who found that holding onto a unified Gaul was an ephemeral triumph at best, HP's event dissolved ineffectively into the night. And like the Roman Empire itself, the individual achievements it sought to glorify may end up being forgotten in the froth of history.