Hard to believe, but articles are popping up at business websites claiming that venerable Hewlett-Packard may fail. In their most recent fiasco, HP wrote off a loss of $8.8 of their $11.1 US billion acquisition of Autonomy and have alleged fraud in the deal. Revenue is down 7% from a year ago and the stock has hit a 10-year low. The company is laying off 27K employees but that may not be enough. Some speculate HP might be broken up into parts with buy-outs involved. This article from last May offers a good in-depth analysis of how all these problems came to pass.
Why is this surprising? crap laptops of poor quality, desktops with low quality out of date components, printers whose ink cost a small fortune, the lack of any sort of value added justification that pulls a customer to their products over Dell, IBM, Lenovo etc. then add on top of that the money wasted hand over fist keeping Itanium alive when the writing on the wall was the moment the AMD Hammer was launched then Intel played catch up.
What is probably more annoying is this, they have all the raw ingredients to turn around the company just as Sun Microsystems had all the raw ingredients to turn the company around but this is what you have when you have a clueless CEO running a company. Running a technology company isn’t just the allocation of resources to departments but leading from the front but far too many times the CEO’s of said companies just simply don’t have a clue about technology itself. I doubt we’ll see much of a change – best case scenario we’ll see HP split up and sold off or worse case it simply limps along and becomes a parasite on the economy sucking up much needed capital from credit market.
Edited 2012-11-23 14:47 UTC
They should do an ’97 Apple. Trim the product line, gather skills to build a few great products.
It raises the question of why these CEOs never think about hiring the right people or promoting the right people instead of laying off people, a group which will no doubt have included the right people.
The problem is you don’t always know who are the right people until after the event. And it’s often very easy for us armchair critics to boast such insights when we’re not betting hundreds of thousands of employees and billions of dollars on every decision we make (much like how everyone thinks they’re a better football manager than their favourite club’s manager).
Plus you don’t generate a loss of $8.8 billion without trying to buy in talent and promote talent. Clearly they did try that, and they failed (for whatever reasons). Now they need to retreat and regroup so they are around long enough to launch another assault.
Edited 2012-11-23 16:41 UTC
That’s the problem with corporate culture: they are completely shit at identifying any talent or potential talent. Can you seriously tell me that, on pure random chance, none of the employees they are about to lay off would happen to have the right skills or even just the right potential to take things somewhere?
I’ve only been exposed to corporate employment for a comparatively short time and it’s easy to see that identifying talent is simply not done. It’s all about getting people to self-promote and doing things “above and beyond” their job description despite them being completely incompetent AT their job description.
It’s not easy, but it’s not done. You would expect a CEO being paid millions for company that earns millions would not have problems taking on difficult tasks. Yet they always take the easy option of laying off people.
They like to paint themselves as making the hard decisions. But they’re not hard decisions at all.
I do see your point and to a large extent I do agree. But I also can’t help thinking you’re being very single minded with your view there. And I don’t mean that in derogatory way because there is a lot of logic and sanity to what you’re saying. But without sitting in the CEO chair myself (not even for a small business, let alone anything large scale) I find it hard to be as confident as you are on this issue.
As I said before, it’s very easy to see with such clarity when you’re an outside observer, but there’s potentially all kinds of details we’re not privy to that would create major complications.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t disagree with what you’re saying, but I’m still somewhat on the fence.
Edited 2012-11-24 17:39 UTC
I understand that. I never said it was easy. But what concerns me is that a number of people automatically side with the decision of letting people go just like that *clicks fingers*, without being privy to any details either.
The fact that the “ordinary person” can say – oh, the company is in trouble, I agree, let’s lay people off – suggests that the actual people running the company aren’t really paying attention to details of their operations either.
There are still some companies out there that would rather retain employees then let them go because brain drain hurts them more than the plain numbers suggests. We never hear them in the news.
Also, 80+% of drivers think they are above average ones.
IMO it’s dumb that HP is even in the computer OEM business. When I think Hewlett-Packard, I think printers, scanners and other computer peripherals. Simple things that just work, in combination with a computer. In fact, due to my experience with their printers in the past as well as their support for open source printer drivers in Linux, my current printer is an HP, and if I ever need another one it will probably also be an HP.
Computers, though? I wouldn’t buy one of those, because to me, HP just isn’t about computers. Sure, it may be a bad way of looking at it, but it’s how I feel–and the fact that they bought such an absolutely shitty OEM (Compaq) doesn’t make me feel any better about it. I feel similarly, though not as strongly, with other computer styles like tablets. It doesn’t help that I didn’t like the design of the systems I’ve seen in the first place.
Selling off their computer OEM business and consolidating their peripheral product lines, IMO, would probably be a good idea. I remember reading a recent article that said HP has something like 2,100 (!) laser (!) printer models alone. I’m sorry, but even if all your company produces is printers, nothing else, two thousand laser printer models is just obscene and a huge drain on… well, a lot of stuff. Maybe give the guy who decided it would be a brilliant idea to have thousands of printer models alone the boot.
HP needs focus, and a leader that won’t get them into such resource-draining, expensive, poorly-profitable (if profitable at all) messes.
Compaq was once a great computer company; when HP bought them they had fallen very far already. If it weren’t for Compaq’s IBM clones back in the 80s the entire industry would be vastly different. Perhaps Apple might even be the leading computer manufacturer (speaking strictly of desktops and laptops).
I do agree with you though: When I think of HP, I think of laser printers and F/OSS friendliness, relatively speaking. As for their inkjet printer offerings…well I’ll say from first hand experience that they are junk for the most part. My part time job sees me bench testing all manner of printers, and by far the ones I loathe the most are the HP inkjets, especially the OfficeJet line. In contrast, their mid to high tier laser offerings are a dream to work on, and don’t require nearly as much maintenance and repair as other brands (Brother, I’m looking at you).
The only down side to HP laser printers is the cost of consumables, but that’s par for the course in that market. In fact, that’s the one area where a Brother printer is a solid choice: Not only are their replacement cartridges dirt cheap, they are chipless, employing a simple to reset mechanical cartridge life indicator, and an easy access plug to pour refills into. The trick is getting the printer itself to outlive the included starter cartridge and drum.
I for one would love to see the company spin off the OEM PC/laptop segment as Compaq, and focus on printing and enterprise under the HP brand. And yes, please consolidate those thousands of printer SKUs into a few dozen models! That would certainly make many people’s jobs easier, mine included.
So… what tricks are involved? :>
Basically, just don’t print a lot at once. Those things weren’t meant for high volume printing, and we found out the hard way that 1000+ pages a day is high volume to a Brother.
I have managed to keep it alive for a while though (HL5370DW if you’re curious). And of course, the first issue we had with it was flaky wireless performance, so I ran an Ethernet line to it and from a connectivity standpoint it’s been flawless since.
I think you just hit the nail on the head is what is wrong is wrong with the company on the whole… “they are junk for the most part”. Once upon a time HP made damned nice computers rock solid desktops and laptops and printers. Now they are all junk, the thinnest plastic, horrible drivers, just garbage.
I USED to buy HP for my business customers, now its all Asus and Samsung, you can’t trust HP anymore. instead of bringing Compaq up they brought HP down to the level of Compaq, similar how Seagate is now nothing but Maxtor with more sales and junk drives.
Is Maxtor Quantum or Maxtor? ;p
Well OTOH that OEM, Compaq, basically brought to us the PC clone market – quite prominent at the very least …and quite a bit about computers.
I do not find their ink/cartridges to cost a small fortune. Am I missing something? But I already decided to go to EPSON, because HP’s ink/cartridges are very expensive and cost prohibitive. And every month, they’ve got this new model of their disposable printers. We even have a large designjet printer where the Hard Drive was broken and it can’t be replaced even if you dd/cloned it because it needs the genuine part number. Sigh. Such a great company.
That is what ‘a small fortune’ means – they’re expensive which you reenforced in your own post. We need colloqualisms 101 on osnews.com asap.
That seems to be a common issue with that printer line in my experience. The problem is finding another brand of ultra wide format printers with the level of support HP offers for their beasts.
And since you mentioned ink costs (and oddly enough contradicted yourself), the DesignJet series is actually fairly cost effective for an HP inkjet, especially considering the narrow market they address.
Absolutely! They make (or used to make, as mine is at least 5 years old) decent printers, but apart from that everything else is crap.
Two years ago I bought a laptop, dv7 core i7 which had a nominal value of 1300 Euro.
One year later I sold it for 450 Euro. In the meantime I had bought a MacBook Pro. I knew there would be an incredible difference in quality, but that went even beyond my expectations. A Fiat Cinquecento vs. a Ferrari!
I had an extraordinary conversation with an HP tech when trying to troubleshoot why a client’s 5610 wifi printer kept disconnecting from the local network. I was told to open ports on the ADSL router to the outside world including 139. There’s something very wrong with your product if this is required or something very wrong with tech support if it’s a ‘recommended fix’.
The client took it back and bought a Canon – end of problem.
A Wi-Fi printer? Now I’m no genius, but I figured years ago that that would be a problem without ever trying it (and I never wasted my time, for that reason).
Whatever happened with using good old wired connections to all your important always-available peripherals like printers, and then accessing them either over a wired or wireless network connection, depending on what interface the computer has that’s connecting to it? Ethernet and serial buses never went extinct, and many routers these days even have USB ports, making it possible to connect a printer using either method directly to your router and accessible on the network.
Could have easily tried a better, more traditional, more reliable connection to your network in the first place… Wi-Fi can be anything *but* reliable. In my experience, it’s like 70/25 between working inadequately and not working at all. The remaining 5 percent? Actually working well with a relatively solid connection. Wi-Fi drivers are often crap, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the printer’s problem. Available “clean” space in the 2.4 GHz frequency band in many areas is crap, too, although if another printer worked it probably wasn’t interference.
With a computer you just have to wait for an updated driver to become available and install it… with a peripheral like a printer, you’d probably have to do a firmware update (much more risky).
WiFi printers enable you to have one printer for the whole house while having several computers and laptops in different rooms. (used by different people)
As an HP printer owner that uses it only in WiFi mode let me tell you this: the weak point of these printers are the drivers.
Once in a while we loose connectivity to the printer with two different Windows 7 laptops, while printing from a MacBook never fails…
a wired printer enable you to have one printer for the whole house while having several computers and laptops in different rooms. (used by different people)
Wireless is nothing but trouble, plug the printer into the network, and there at least 3 different ways to share that with other computers in the house, no wifi needed.
I agree, there are only two reasons to use the WiFi option on a printer: Either you need to place the printer in an area that is impractical to run a hard line to, or you have a curious need to boast “Look y’all, I’ve got a wireless printer WOOO!”
You’d think I was making up the second reason, but sadly I’ve sold more than one WiFi printer at work based on a customer’s inexplicable need to have every device in their house “wireless”, even though after some questions it’s revealed that they have a home or office prewired for gigabit Ethernet, right down to the gig-E router.
Eh… so does an Ethernet-connected printer, and even one connected with USB if you set up a network share on the host computer or (better yet) just connect it directly to your router… and it does so much more reliably…
I’m confused. Was your response directed at me, or the original poster? Because I already stated that Wi-Fi drivers, in general, are crap…
Of course, I’ll probably continue to get modded down for stating the facts, but–well, I guess the truth hurts some people. I’m not saying to drop all wireless connections… hell, I use Wi-Fi all the time on my phone (beats the hell out of cellular Internet, and my phone–shockingly–does seem to have solid Wi-Fi drivers). I’m just saying to drop Wi-Fi where it makes sense (ie. buggy drivers or where availability is important; in other words, peripherals like *gasp* printers and scanners).
Edited 2012-11-23 19:06 UTC
I have an HP wireless printer shared by two linux boxes. The fact is this printer works flawlessly. The fact is it was very easy and fast to setup. The fact is, if ever I should by another printer, Wi-Fi will be a must have feature. But these are my facts, and facts, strangely enough, are too volatile; and computer facts are specially subjective.
Great. Sounds like you lucked out. If it works well and it’s what you want, then good for you… I’m not telling anyone to abandon anything that they own that actually works. I’m just stating that Wi-Fi tends to be hit-or-miss in many devices.
The original poster was complaining about a shitty Wi-Fi connection; I’m just saying, well, duh… what did anyone expect with the pathetic state that Wi-Fi drivers are in, especially in a device that can’t easily have such internal problems fixed? I’ve had problems in the early 2000s with Windows wireless drivers, and I still have problems with and dread Wi-Fi in Linux.
Just beware when buying that printer, as has been pointed out a few times now Wi-Fi drivers often suck, and embedded systems are not exactly the easiest to safely update the drivers to. You know what you want or need though, so by all means… if you really want or need it, go for it.
Personally, I’d rather save the time and potential frustration and put my money to better use by buying a printer that does what it is meant to do well (print) and leave the wireless router to do what it does well–provide access to that printer over the network, with or without wires, as needed. Less money spent on useless, potentially badly implemented features that provide duplicate functionality and are better implemented in other ways to begin with; more money spent toward performance and quality.
Added bonus: You’ll have one less 802.11x device to potentially slow down your wireless network performance when 802.11y comes out. 802.11n has only been out for a few years now, and 802.11ac is already well on its way. Those embedded wireless devices in printers aren’t exactly user-upgradeable.
But that’s just me; obviously everyone is different. A lot of people go out and buy some cheap multi-function print/scan/fax/kitchen sink machine; I cringe at the very existence of those products. In the end, everyone’s free to buy whatever they want, just as the companies are free to make them.
Very few people actually want to wire their whole house for Ethernet.
Soulbender,
“Very few people actually want to wire their whole house for Ethernet.”
I just saw my brother recently, we bought some wifi gear that needed to be configured via ethernet. I thought this wouldn’t be a problem, but I quickly discovered that the macbook pro of his lacks any ethernet connectivity at all. Lucky I had my laptop around to set up the devices. Granted, one could carry a dongle everywhere, but in my eyes the macbook pro fell significantly short of it’s “pro” designation because it would have left my brother in a pickle if I weren’t there with a full featured laptop.
/tangent
My Kyocera Laser is available to ALL the computers in my hose over WiFi. I’ve just connected it to my WiFi hub with a bit of Cat-5.
That is the sort of config that was being proposed (I guess).
Then you don’t have to rely on the crappy WiFi drivers in the printer.
Sadly, you are one of only three people who have responded who actually seem to get the point… in fact, in a nutshell, you pretty much nailed it (as did the other two).
Edited 2012-11-25 17:26 UTC
Wiring just the bare essentials that you want to have up for use at all times is hardly “the whole house.” You seem to be forgetting all the computers on the network that will, you know, be the systems to actually print to those printers in most, if not all, cases…
And considering you have to have one cable running from the printer to the wall (good luck getting it to work without power), what’s a second one going to hurt? Seriously? I honestly doubt that people move their printers every two weeks for the fun of it… printers are the kinds of things you set up, leave alone, and just use to print things.
And by the way, nowhere did I advocate using Ethernet cables for every single system on the network… nowhere. Only where it makes sense. And I’m sorry, but for printers… it just makes sense to bypass using Wi-Fi directly.
So? Maybe I just don’t want to deal with a bunch of cabling? Maybe they’re all wireless?
Yes, what’s one more going to hurt. And another one. And another one…
The less cables I have to deal with the better and if the WiFi in the printer works well then why not use it?
For you maybe but not for everyone.
Edited 2012-11-25 02:35 UTC
I have exactly… two Ethernet cables connected to my router (not including WAN). Printer and desktop computer. Oh, the horror! All portable devices? The ones that, by definition, will not stay put (phones, laptops, tablets, etc.)? Wi-Fi. That “everything else” typically has better drivers than Wi-Fi that’s sloppily tacked onto a printer, and in case of laptops, bad drivers are easily “fixed” (replaced).
Yes… I concede. I am in excruciating pain by having a whopping two out of the four LAN ports on my router in use and occupied by a cable. :/ Does anyone have some morphine? I think I’ll just go grab a Bhut Jolokia for my opioid/painkiller fix.
If it works well, then good–you might also realize from reading my past posts that if you have something that works for you and you actually need it for whatever reason, then use it–there’s no point in change. But how dare I suggest that anyone actually *read* what I previously said…
Wifi printers have the same appeal as wifi itself: no need to be physically connected with a cable.
Obviously that’s possible without having the printer itself connected via wifi (network printer, printer shared over the network using a PC that can be accessed via the wifi network). The issues are that: many people only have a laptop these days & aren’t interested in getting a desktop just to share a printer over the network. And there are many consumer-grade printers available now that have wifi support, but lack a physical ethernet jack, because most printer makers seem to consider that a business-class option (AKA they can charge an artificial premium for it).
The primary issue I have with wifi printers is that the interface for joining the wireless network tends to be terrible. I remember setting one up a few years ago for someone who had an older router that only supported WEP – entering a WEP key with a 2-button interface isn’t exactly my idea of user-friendly.
You might not want to forget to plug in your power cord, or you’ll have a hell of a time getting that “wireless” printer to work… how’s that for wireless, eh?
Does anyone actually read through any of the posts before they post themselves? I’ll just mention one last time: USB and USB-capable routers. No need for a dedicated host computer to be turned on with the printer; no need for a Wi-Fi printer for the printer to be available wirelessly over the network. The end.
I think I’m done here, because I keep having to repeat the same shit over and over, because it seems almost no one has actually read what I have already posted several times now. My point has been made, plain as day; if people don’t want to hear it or can’t comprehend it for whatever reason, oh well.
Last I checked, a wired printer isn’t going to work without power either. So what WAS your point?
Yes, that’s right – just because I quoted and referred to the post that I replied to, why would you think I actually read it?
That is an option, yes – but is by no means ubiquitous, IME it’s only been in the past year that cheap routers have started including USB ports as standard options. And obviously that’s going to limit where the printer can be located, since it needs to be near the router.
Yeah…. that’s probably a good idea.
Not necessarily. A small Wi-Fi router that can connect to an existing network would do the job as well, and could be located wherever you want the printer to be. Obviously doing it this way isn’t for everyone, but it’s the route I’d take because when problems come up (and with Wi-Fi they inevitably will at some point) a second router is easier to diagnose than a printer that sometimes can’t even display its error logs to you without a 500 mb HP driver loaded with bloatware.
Yeah, that’s basically the same setup I use as well. Though I don’t usually recommend it for non-techies because if you have desktops or other computers connected to the wired network, they’re not going to be able to connect to the printer (unless you setup the wireless router to act as a bridge instead of a gateway).
Agreed. IME, a lot of the problems have to wifi routers trying to do too many things (AP, gateway, switch). It seems a bit silly to have a physically separate router, switch, and AP for just my small setup, but I’ve had exponentially fewer problems with that setup than when trying to use a single device for everything.
I knew someone would bring this up. Just to clarify:
My point was that with a “wireless” printer you will *need* a wire anyway, so–unless you absolutely must have your router and printer two or three large rooms apart from each other (ie. opposite sides of the house), or your router on one floor of the building and the printer on another, a “wireless” printer just doesn’t make much sense. Specifically when you consider the reliability benefits of a wired connection and the potential drawbacks to Wi-Fi relating to drivers and overall reliability. You know… the things I’ve been going about from pretty much the beginning.
And with that clarification made… that is all.
Edited 2012-11-24 19:29 UTC
Obviously we live in the land where people don’t own laptops or tablets and would never want to print anything from those types or portable devices …
</sarcasm>
Obviously, I’m on a site where people reply profusely without reading what the person they’re replying to has been said a million times already…
And that’s not sarcasm.
Mains power sockets are much more plentiful in a typical apartment than Ethernet jacks… meanwhile, a longish loose cable between where the router is (near phone jack), and a printer, might be not seen as desired.
I mean, we don’t live in idealised world. USB-capable router might be more expensive than almost-freebie somebody gets with DSL. And wired Ethernet on printers seems be treated lately by manufacturers as more of a “premium” feature than wifi. And quite many people only have a laptop and such.
Yeah, wifi printers can be more problematic – well, in that case we should primarily expect improvement from the manufacturers.
Edited 2012-12-01 00:02 UTC
Heh, you had it easy. Try a 48-character WPA2 password including capitals, numbers, and punctuation. That’s just one of several reasons why, when I actually need a printer (believe it or not I don’t actually need one right now) I’ll be getting either a USB or Ethernet printer and an Airport Express or other print server to go along with it. It’s much easier to set up and diagnose when there’s a problem, and I don’t have to pay a premium for Wi-Fi printers and, even though I’ll pay extra for the router or print server, they can perform other functions as well. More for my money, and that’s always a plus.
I’ll agree with you if we’re talking about their consumer-grade printers or computers. They’re throwaway, but then again, most consumer grade inkjets are. And I see more HP “entertainment series” laptops with bad motherboards than anything else.
But when it comes to enterprise-grade gear, they are excellent.
Their enterprise support is great too. I’ve been able to purchase contract extensions on systems where the warranty (and support contact) had expired, and then have parts replaced under that contract for a fraction of what the replacement parts would cost. 4 hour turnaround time is pretty good. Support is one of the main reasons I keep selling HP servers.
I just took apart two HP Elitebook 8000w series notebooks that were damaged when the recent hurricane ripped the roof off the building they were in. Although both are likely a total loss. It was surprising to see how well designed they were. Really a night and day difference from the total crap that is the DV series.
I don’t think HP has a “products problem.” Their printers, PCs, and servers are still decent quality compared to their competitors. The company still enjoys a dominate position in several market sectors.
I think HP has a “Board problem.” As that last article cited shows, the people in charge of this company have brought it low through unbelievable management mistakes. A first grader could have done better.
Too bad 27,000 employees are losing their jobs on behalf of these Board idiots.
It’s their products and the management because the management is responsible for the products.
HP products just suck, you keep away from them. I work at a lot of different companies and where they used to have HP they now buy everything from Dell mostly.
Last time I bought a HP printer myself, printed a couple of documents then it stood there for 6 months doing nothing. Then it told me my cartridges were expired and I needed to buy new ones. Wtf it’s not food is it?
So I bought an Epson and no issues anymore with expiring cartridges.
It’s always the fault of the board …but somehow, plenty enough of companies with similar “idiots” at the helm do fine.
Feels similar to the downfall of Sun this, albeit without the alleged fraud. Too big to exert sufficient control and execute a coherent strategy over the disparate parts of the business, especially if the leadership isn’t strong enough.
This is like a trend, every company that bases their busines model exclusively or almost exclusively on complementing Microsoft products is going down, like HP, AMD, Nokia, Dell and to some extent Intel.
Others have seen the danger beforehand and attempted to diversify, like NVidia with Tegra.
LOL… nice way to look at it. But Nokia is kind of different from the others you mentioned; in their case, they didn’t just decide to go Microsoft-only. Mr. Head Dumbass Elop made the braindead decision to practically throw everything they had out and switch to Microsoft overnight. No sane businessman with any respect for his company or even his own public image would do that. I am still shocked at such a ridiculous move.
The other companies? Well… their dependence on Microsoft is just finally beginning to catch up with them and bite them in the ass, as ironically I have seen/heard being predicted probably a decade or more ago…
Elop is not braindead, he is a deliberate wrecker sent in by MS to do the job. No OEM wanted to use Windows phone. Once Elop forces it onto Nokia all the other OEM’s have to bring out a phone to compete and MS got its edge in the market. Now Nokia longer matters to them Elop can destroy it and arrange for MS to end up holding the patents. Just another MS saboteur and the Nokia board fell for it. No Elop is smart he has done his job and will be well rewarded for it. The Nokia board is braindead.
That’s an interesting way of looking at it (haven’t heard that one before), but it certainly sounds plausible…
If Microsoft doesn’t take Elop back in, his resume won’t look too good to any other company once Nokia finishes sinking.
Not everything is a conspiracy theory.
Series 40 OS is almost flourishing under Elop, finally rapidly moving forward after over half a decade of total stagnation. It’s even starting to be described as a smartphone platform now (arguably, if we were to use any resemblance of rigorous definition, it was always more a smartphone than the iPhone in its first year). Series 30 handsets also undergo changes, advancements.
But I guess by now I’m not shocked that many critics don’t really follow what Nokia did and is doing…
(also: http://www.osnews.com/permalink?543163 )
Edited 2012-11-25 08:52 UTC
Maybe those companies can switch to Ubuntu exclusively and get that beige box market saturation back out of the gutter!
Versus, what, computer manufacturers that didn’t ally themselves with Microsoft? They are all long DEAD (Apple also allied themselves, if more loosely; but Macs are basically standard Wintel PCs hardware-wise, very much coming from MS-curated ecosystem)
Nokia was in hot water before MS. Intel is flourishing.
OTOH… are you implying that PowerPC is doing well? Zilog? MOS & Commodore?
Most of CPU or GFX manufacturers – also gone, MS or not; killed by competition from Intel, AMD, Nvidia, ATI.
And BTW HP tried to build a major part of their business on mobile Linux OS …tried and failed; it possibly hastened their “demise”(?).
Lenovo is doing very fine BTW.
Edited 2012-11-25 08:45 UTC
No, HP the company is not dying, but HPQ the stock is getting it’s ass kicked. HP had revenues of $120 BILLION in FY2012, and made over $8 BILLION in PROFIT. That’s real cash in the bank. The reported “loss” is an artifact of how public companies are required to account for prior investments going bad.
IMHO, HP faces two real problems. The first is the changing nature of the computer business. Many of the products that HP sells today have reached the peak of their popularity. I don’t see desktops and laptops going away, but there’s no more growth there. HP tried to make a play for phones and tablets with Palm/WebOS, and failed. HP makes good money on servers, but virtualization and cloud computing mean corporations are buying fewer servers (cloud providers are buying tons of servers, but many buy direct from China). HP’s services organization is profitable, but is treading water. Services is labor intensive; growth in revenue usually comes with corresponding growth in expenses, making it difficult to increase profits.
This brings us to the second problem. HP was #10 on the 2012 Fortune 500 list. It’s damn hard to generate significant organic growth in ANY company of that size. It’s hard to see how HP can grow at a rate that makes Wall Street happy.
> “HP tried to make a play for phones and tablets with Palm/WebOS, and failed.”
The didn’t “fail”, they committed suicide.
I still believe Microsoft was behind all of that. I suspect they put the kibosh on Hurd (as if no one has ever heard of a CEO sleeping with his secretary before!), then they strong armed Leo with the threat of revoking their right to distribute Windows on their PCs. So HP had little choice. But I think it is also why Leo decided it was time for HP to get out of the stinking PC business. And we all know how that decision fared. But if they can’t stand up to M$, he was probably absolutely right.
Nobody is happy about what happened with Palm/WebOS. The fact is that Palm phones and the Touchpad were not succeeding in the marketplace at prices above the cost of production. Reasonable people can disagree on whether HP should have kept trying, or if they made the best of a bad situation by not throwing good money after bad. My heart wishes they had kept trying, but my head understands why they didn’t.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
HP tried to make a play for phones and tablets with Palm/WebOS, and failed.
Tried?
1) they released a non-compatible tablet WITHOUT the software
2) quickly ceased production/development and sold the remaining stock under production cost
Hit & Run strategy
There’s plenty of room for growth in emerging markets (of course, Lenovo is likely positioned for that much better than HP)
Don’t believe all the hype about emerging markets. There’s a reason they’re called “emerging”. You need to consider profitability, not just unit volume.
You’re moving goalposts, “peak of popularity” is about unit volume…
Anyway, you need to remember what “emerging” word means – many of those markets won’t be emerging any more after some time, they will be quite prosperous.
And the brand loyalties and such will be already with Lenovo. Already there’s a reason why they are pretty much the only large PC EOM seeing healthy growth.
(disclaimer: I live in borderline emerging area; if you’re underestimating those, you’re in for a surprise)
Edited 2012-11-26 08:22 UTC
Truth is it’s hard to makes mainstream people (customers, workers) *and* Wall Street happy at the same time.
That’s a trend since last 30 years.
Another tombstone in the graveyard of companies that married Microsoft.
Let’s change some words
“Another tombstone in the graveyard of companies that have embraced open source”
Actually I like VMS (OpenVMS), but the roadmap of it looks like HP going to kill it. HP refuses to port it over x86-64, latest version only runs over a dying processor only, the Itenium. And seems no further development for it either.
Edited 2012-11-23 19:15 UTC
The sad truth is that an X64 version of OpenVMS wouldn’t generate enough revenue to fund the development.
Maybe, but seems $11.1B has spent on a rubbish rather than improving its own product/service, the management board has serious problem.
VMS on Itenium is dead end.
Maybe Open source VMS will make its name OpenVMS really mean “open” in current sense, and they could build a community around it.
Guys,
Take a step back, I don’t like HP, but you are all looking at a minor issue really. HP is not about the products you see in the shops, or even in the big business like their server. The majority of HP is about IT services. They deliver managing, consulting, one-stop services (even for IBM, Oracle and many more products) to their customers. And yes, I deal with these people on a regular basis. Most of them don’t know what they are doing and can’t read manuals for the 3th party products they are supposed to manage. Companies are learning that putting all their eggs in one basket (HP, Oracle, …) is not such a good idea.
Tom UK
Incorrect. Services is nowhere near a majority of HP’s business, either in gross revenue or net profit.
In FY2012, services accounted for 28% of revenue and 32% of profit. PC’s were 29%/13%, printers were 20%/28%, servers were 17%/17%, software was 3%/6%, and finance was 3%/3%.
Source:
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MTYyNzc0…
That was my thought, too. Commenters here are almost all thinking of HP as a company selling printers and crappy laptops – not as a company that does a lot of consulting work, and sells a lot of big-iron hardware. And it’s those areas where they’re getting a thorough ass-kicking lately, where they’re competing rather unsuccessfully with Oracle and IBM.
Partly that’s because they’re reliant on Oracle supporting them as a platform, which isn’t really a good position to be in – Oracle obviously have no great incentive to make HP look good. But in large part it’s simply that their offerings are crap compared to their competitors – there’s really not much reason to buy a big HP server, instead of a comparable IBM or Oracle/Sun machine…
Sony looks very shaky as well: it has now been rated as junk bond. It looks like iOS killed their gaming division, and their electronics division killed itself with subpar products at high prices.
iOS and Xbox; both looking now more long-term viable.
Though OTOH Sony is a lot more than gaming and consumer electronics…
So I am an HP employee. the reality is HP has become too big and we have had previous CEO’s try to grow through acquisition. While wall street and the amateur techies see HP as a consumer computer company the serious IT folks see the enterprise side of the business.
The consumer side is a mess. Although I think the quality issues have been getting better the problem is that HP consumer products are a race to the bottom unless you can command a premium based on brand like Apple.
Enterprise is a different story…. number one in x86 server shipments for like 60+ quarters, HP Storage is doing better with the 3Par acquisition and becoming a real competitor on the network side of the house. HP software and services are a bit wacky because of the EDS and Autonomy acquisitions and well there is still a lot to do as far as integration on those two fronts.
Honestly the layoff coming are necessary. We have bulked up because of the acquisitions and we can’t support the company at the size we are today, it does suck though for 29K people. Product road maps are starting to look a little more promising as we seem to be recovering from where Mark Hurd hurt us the most.
Morale is really the biggest issue…All the negative news really make me second guess my thoughts on staying as it just wears you down after a while, however I am starting to feel a little hopeful we will turn this around, hopefully before Oracle or some other company buys us.
I just love the blase attitude people have when it’s not them getting the kick. I bet you wouldn’t be nearly so calm about it if you were the one getting the boot, especially after it comes from idiotic decisions made at the board level. Hmm, I notice none of them are suffering as a result, they’d rather push it on to the mortals rather than pay for their own errors in judgement. Fascinating how corporate culture works, eh?
P.S. Yes, I have been employed by a large corporation before, so I’m not talking out of my ass. I’ve seen it up close.
I’m the first to agree that layoffs suck but unfortunately they are a fact of life. I will also be the first one to point out that HP board-members and CEO’s have put this company in a horrible bind. The company can’t continue as is and this is a single step. I have seen a lot of people leave or get laid off many folks took early retirement packages. If it wasn’t for my very unique situation I would probably go. This is the reality of modern corporations where ceo’s are judged on a 13week basis. Is it wrong? Absolutely! It bothers me tremendously and is probably the reason this will be the last publicly traded company I work for. I do however understand what they are doing and this is an attempt to right the ship, will it work? I don’t know…
Why the hell not layoff the incompetent fuckers who made the poor acquisitions? Why the hell hire people whose only “strategy” is get rich quick through acquisitions in the first place?
They’ve basically got a whole small town of qualified people that they’re going to throw away when in fact it could be cheaper and better in the long run to retain them and retrain them at a small cost. Think about what 29K people could think up now that they’re not busy.
The place I work for, they’re always encouraging employees to go “above and beyond”. But then they completely decimate the headcount, leaving one person to do three people’s jobs and they expect them to have time to do frivolous things.
Bureaucracy and Politics, I worked in two mega bureaucracies now and I know politics. The game doesn’t make sense if your think everyone is working for a common goal.
It depends, in large organisations there are a lot of people that tend to be almost useless, but not damaging enough to get sacked.
I suspect a good number of those people were glorified secretaries.
It normally the way, we have talented programmers (a lot better than I) firefighting legacy systems all day. I am currently the sole developer that has 100% of his time working on the CMS … go figure.
Edited 2012-11-24 21:10 UTC
Agreed, but getting rid of them doesn’t get them out of the hole. Yes, senior management are hugely overpaid as individuals, but collectively they’re small-beans compared to the cost of paying salaries for tens of thousands of workers. So even if they get rid of the bad execs (as they should), they still need to get rid of large numbers of regular folks as well.
In theory. In practice, they still need to be paid now that they’re not busy. I’ve been in that position, and when the company isn’t making money, the first priority tends to be to stop doing stuff that’s losing money
True but what I think is grating is that the management hardly ever is let go and if they do it’s usually with a hefty package. It’s like getting paid incredibly well to screw up and that’s not how capitalism is supposed to work.
Like spending all day on the golf course….
Or getting their offices redecorated with a $1400 trash can.
Er, they have. Shane Robison was one of the first out the door when Meg Whitman arrived. He was head of HP’s Office of Strategy & Technology (OS&T), which is also gone. OS&T were responsible for almost all acquisitions within HP.
Disclaimer: I work for HP.
Yay for efficiency!(?)
But would you say the same thing if you where one of the 29k?
I do agree with you though, the enterprise end is where HP is strong. The X86/AMD servers and the Procurve line of switches are excellent products.
If I was or will WFR’ed be is irrelevant to the facts that HP would still need to reduce headcount. Of course my feelings would be a little bit more jaded and make no mistake I really am not happy with all of this…or the actions of HP for the last 8 years or so.
I use a HP workstation at work, a Z600 series. Well built and decent workstation.
The only complaint was the amount of HP crapware … this is a Dual Xeon workstation (has 8 cores), I expect an almost vanilla installation.
A good *workstation*? from *HP*?? The day of miracles has come!
My memory of HP workstations is that they’re all crap and the only good stuff is the servers and switches.
Unlike their consumer line, I’ve had (mostly) good vibes coming from guys that use Z-series workstations, whether Linux or Windows based. A bloke I know who specializes in crowd-simulation work swears by them.
Same could also be said for HP’s Elitebook range of enterprise laptops, or at least that used to be the case a bit more than a year ago.
Edited 2012-11-25 05:05 UTC
yeah, it is rock solid.
We use HP Workstations at work and they’re fine. HP’s low end stuff and consumer stuff may be crap, but their higher end workstation and elitebook laptops are solid.
At first I thought misread that, but yep. Tis true!
That is 2 7 and THREE zeroes not 2.
I guess that means the CEO and crew get a gigantic bonus and possibly a bailout request?
-Hack
But just who the **** is “autonomy” and what do they even do? I’m no closer to figuring that out after reading the wikipedia entry for them than I was before I even heard the name…
What I do see visiting their website is a bunch of marketspeak and feel good theory, the type of thing a suit who takes IT advice from the pages of Forbes might fall for — such practice being the equivalent of taking financial advice from the pages of Popular Electronics.
I do however see card stacking, glittering generalities and transfer. Sounds to me like HP was too stupid to realize that there’s no substance underneath the endlessly vague and pointless use of ‘feel good’ terminology that seems to make up the companies front. Shades of a decade ago with “sophisticated IT investor, will give cash for vague promises”
… and then after the suits were too stupid to realize there’s no actual product of value, they wonder why it’s a money pit? *SIGH* THE MOMENT you hear terms like “human information” or “meaning based computing”, much less real gems like “Vertical Customer base” – followed by a list of megacorporations that are completely unrelated, your common sense should be tingling.
Common Sense — it’s a superpower.
I recognize this companies methodologies fully — it’s the same stuff SEO scam artists have used to turn search into a cottage industry when it’s all a bunch of flim-flam fantasyland nonsense… or worse, the type of thing that allows outright criminal companies like commodities houses to skim off the top of real products — since for every Enron there are dozens more who make a buck doing nothing of value apart from, in the words of Eddie Murphy “Oh I get it, you’all a bunch of bookies!”
I’m half expecting to come across a section saying that Autonomy is proactive and a totally outrageous paradigm given the rest of the sick buzzwords that fills up the literature about them. (For those of you who missed it, that’s a “Simpsons” joke)
Edited 2012-11-27 19:08 UTC