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HP: Rival Printers Mean No More HPs Through Dell
blamanj writes: "Dell Computer seems to have pissed off HP, with their intent to sell their own printers. HP will apparently stop supplying printers to Dell, even though the new Dell products are not yet shipping."
Dude, yer goin' to hell!
In a truely competitive market, a company gets nowhere by not selling their product to someone else. If I were an HP stock holder, I'd be pissed.
Burn Hollywood Burn
You're only giving a long-term leg-up to your competition by allowing them to smoothly and easily transition to their own product line by continuing to sell them yours. You're giving up a short-term gain for a bit of long-term hurt. Exactly what I would have done.
This whole 'coopetition' thing is just like Microsoft tries to get competitors to do. "Let us use your product and embrace it until we're ready to demolish it."
That is because with HP's purchase of Compaq, they are in direct competition with Dell with the PC. Now I wonder who will be next. HP is just shooting itslef on this one. Do they really want Dell to get pissed at them and start making inkjet printers with cheaper ink?
Oh right! Dell's going to make printers. That makes as much sense as HP making computers.
wait a second....
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I know everyone is saying this is a bad move for HP and it very well may be but I think I see what they are doing. If Dell intends to produce their own printers why would they continue to purchase HP priinters in the future when it obviously will end up being far cheaper for them to manufactor and package their own. HP is trying to cut them off before they can do this and hurt them in computer sales when they won't be able to package anymore HP printers while going on with this. One of two things will happen, either Dell will get suckered into a big fat increase on HP printers or they will have to go with another manufactor. Either way its not that bad for HP because they can focus on supplying other vendors, theirselves included or they will get some additional revenue while hurting Dell. Business as usual.
The article states that printers are sold at a loss and that most consumers prefer to buy their ink cartridges at local retail stores (the profit maker). Because HP has presence in the retail arena this makes sense. However, Dell must believe that customers are willing to purchase supplies online for Dell branded printers, even knowing that most consumers prefer to do retail.
I don't know about everyone else, but I don't buy ink cartridges until I need them and when I do I run down to the store and pick one up because they are so freaking expensive. Unless you are monitoring your ink, you can't predict when you will need to order another one online and wait 3-5 days to get it.
As for HP cutting off sales to Dell? Seems par for the course for a company that hasn't made very many good decisions lately.
Living in the Bay Area, I find the main trouble I see is that any attack on Fiorina's ideas or methods is immediately interpreted in some quarters as an attack against women in important roles (like CEO). Granted, some people do make things a gender issue ("that stupid bitch", etc), but it's frustrating to be grouped in with them when you try to make reasonable points. It's gotten to the point where I group her with politics and religion as things to avoid in friendly conversation.
No matter, though; I've sold my HP stock and I don't work there, so maybe my company will see a rise in business while HP starts to toss theirs. Still, it's always sad to see a company sunk by its PHBs.
PS: I think renaming the Compaq Center the "HP Pavillion" is probably the tackiest thing I've every heard. Fortunately, for the locals who care it'll always be the Shark Tank.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
>>Dell spokesman Mike Maher said his company would still sell HP branded printers that it purchases through distributors, but expressed dismay at HP's decision. "Frankly we're surprised that a company would make it harder for customers to get their hands on their products," he said.
No, it's not harder to get an HP printer, I can go to any of 1000 stores near me and pick one up quite easily, as can any number of new-computer buying people.
Dell is trying to muscle into HP's area, and this is how HP is responding. I'm not surprised at all...
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
I agree with you! This is one example of why women should NOT be CEO's or in any power postition whatsoever!
You're obviously a troll, but I'm going to play with your argument for a bit.
If this is a good enough reason for women to not be CEOs, then the Enron debacle is an example of why men should not be CEOs. Men are far too greedy and aggressive, too willing to lie and deceive to get their way, and spend too much time sexually harassing their secretaries to get any work done. Thus, since neither men nor women are qualified to be CEOs, I propose we dismantle all corporations until such time as we develop an AI suitable for administering their functions.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
reason HP is pulling printers from Dell is because that
lovable scamp, the "Dell Guy", reportedly grabbed Carly's
ass at a recent "goodwill" meeting.
Carly was overheard to say "He'll never get his hands
on my toner again!". The Dell Guy responded with "Dude,
what a rude BITCH!"
Can someone without an actual job please find this link?
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
Looks like one bad decision after the next. First that moronic Compaq-HP merger and then this.
Makes sense to me.
Why would Dell want to be dependent on Compaq for its printers?
Why would Compaq want to assist Dell's sales of computer systems by selling them printers.
I expect Compaq-HP would have cut Dell off eventually, or ramped up the printer prices to put them at a competitive disadvantage to Compaq's line and sucked out their market share in the PC business. (If nothing else, continuing the relationship would bring up anti-trust issues eventually.)
So Dell started cutting the apron strings, and Compaq used this as an excuse to do as much damage to them as possible in one hit.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It's (potentially) better than that (for printer buyers and users)..
1. Dell detects that HP/Canon/Epson are keeping margins artificially high on printers. Dell does a gut check to see if they can undercut the BigBoyz in the marketplace. Dell decides they can.
2. HP sees a new competitor with money, knowledge and resources in the PC arena, decides that rather than allow Dell to transition smoothly to offering their Dell-branded printers, "We can offer you a Dell brand printer 25% cheaper than the comparable HP and give you free extended support.", HP decides to deprive Dell of some printer customers.
3. Dell now has to scramble to get their printers to market, maybe they make some "entry mistakes" maybe they don't (i'd bet don't), regardless, now Dell has to explain WHY they can't offer the customer (most esp CORPORATE buyers who have been told EXACTLY what model HP printer to buy) the world's best-selling printers.
4. HP now goes DIRECTLY to the big Dell corporate accoutants and attempts to undercut Dell's nascent printer biz, the most common technique will be reduced prices.
5. Dell responds with further price drops across their new printer line to gain and retain sales.
Should it actually work that way, that just the "Capitialism Classic" approach to business.
The Egyptians did it 4000 years ago.
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
This would be an interesting story purely from a business perspective, but the fact that it's about printers gives it a different spin.
Printer profits also depend on sales of ink, since the printers themselves are often sold at a loss [...]
The lack of true competition specifically in the inkjet / bubblejet market is sickening - there is hardly any other market where producers can get away with the shameless margins seen here. Basically you're paying $50 for a $5 piece of hobbled (i.e., you can't refil it) equipment, over and over again. I would prefer to pay a market price for a printer, if I got to pay a fair price for the cartridges later on. Hopefully a additional big player will even things out a bit.
yes, we have no bananas
There's a new sign in the window at HP's corporate HQ.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
I have it from a well-placed source in Dell that Lexmark is going to be making the printers that Dell is going to rebrand.
Since I buy all of my x86 servers from Dell and am familiar with their support structure, as are my desktop people, this may be an attractive alternative to HP if the printers are decent. I personally have little experience with Lexmark, tho they do have some nice looking management tools. With Dell's backing I'd be willing to give them a chance. Dell has always given me excellent support. Such as recently offering to take back the Itanium servers that were bought by a group at work and give a full refund due to Itanium being the huge dud that it was.
We recently replaced several of our HP 5si's with HP9000's, and boy are they pieces of shit! We've had nothing but problems with them. And they just feel flimsy as hell when you open them up and futz around with their guts. Guess HP's been doing too much corner-cutting. I regret that we got rid of the 5si's as they are solid printers.
By telling the world that PA-RISC was going to be phased out, HP killed any chance of growth in the high-end business. No customer with any sense would believe that a transition from PA-RISC to Itanium would not be a monumental upheaval. And if a painful transition was a certainty, why not bite the bullet and go with either Sun or IBM? The decision could not have come at a worse time with the last boom for a while in business computing just about to start.
With growth flat in what should have been a boom time, HP desperately entered the lower margin consumer PC business in order to generate more cash flow, any kind of cash flow. Unfortunately HP entered the business just as it was about to crash in turn. What was supposed to at least generate some revenue now has the prospect of unending losses.
Anyone can see that the sensible approach for HP would be to save the last of the company's crown jewels, the printer business, by simply exiting the consumer and small business PC markets, both HP and Compaq brands. This would have eliminated competing head-to-head with Dell and probably avoided provoking Dell into trying to offer Dell's own brand of printers. The only problem would have been figuring out what was left for the company to do in the computing industry. Where can HP generate profit if on the high-end the product line is dependent on the Itanium processor, especially if Intel is now selling to anyone not just the processor but also the guts of entire systems? What exactly does HP own that is unique in the computing industry? Where's the beef?
Perhaps the decline was inevitable once HP ceased to be a company of engineers who got things done. The company had reached the limits of organization. To have preserved the "HP Way" the company by the 1980s would have had to have morphed into a high-tech holding company whose "business" would have been using connections to Stanford and Berkeley to finance upstarts such as Steven Wozniak.