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HP is Tech's New Top Dog?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the top-of-the-heap dept.

bart_scriv writes "BusinessWeek argues that HP is the new Big Blue: 'Now, tech is about to get a new biggest behemoth. It's HP. The Palo Alto, Calif., PC and printer giant had higher sales than IBM last quarter, and analysts project it will finish 2006 with greater annual sales than Big Blue for the first time ever: $91 billion for HP vs. $90.5 billion for IBM. The reason HP pulled ahead is simple: IBM last year sold off its $11 billion PC business to Lenovo Group Ltd. But, because the companies have chosen fundamentally different paths, with HP aggressively going after consumers while IBM focuses on corporations, HP is expected to grow faster than IBM in coming years. Since both use blue in their logos, you might say there's a new Big Blue in the house.'"

4 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. Carly, carly, carly... by penguinstorm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If this is true, you think Carly Fiorina will feel vindicated?

    She was certainly vilified when they ran her out of the corner office. If it turns out that her years were the ones that built the foundation on which a renewed greatness was built, will anybody remember?

    --
    Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
    1. Re:Carly, carly, carly... by Retric · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't think HP is doing better than IBM. IBM is doing a lot of high margin sales where HP is doing slightly higher volume low profit sales.

      Which would you like to have a 40% profit on 1 billion or a 1.4% profit on 10 billion in sales?

    2. Re:Carly, carly, carly... by demachina · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No :)

      Carly had reached the point that she was a perpetual distraction, everyone was talking about her more than HP, so I would be inclined to say HP is doing better because she is gone. She was a one women wrecking crew for morale at HP, and her blatant elitism is offensive to most. In particular employees hated her when she was laying them off but buying Gulfstreams, having HP pay to move her yacht from East to West coast, and on perpetual company funded jet setting trips with celebrities mostly to build her political career. She acted more like a Duchess than a business person.

      Her most famous quote "There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore. We all have to compete for jobs.", while probably true is a purely stupid thing for a CEO of an American company, with American workers, dependent on sales to a lot of American geeks to say out loud.

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      @de_machina
  2. So let me get this straight... by PCM2 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    From my read of TFA:
    1. IBM is an enterprise IT company, HP is going after consumers.
    2. Margins on consumer technology are razor thin.
    3. Fortunately, HP has created a printer business with huge margins on ink jet cartridges etc.
    4. ???
    5. HP Profits, IBM quakes in its boots.

    I don't see a lot of "new era for HP" in this story, nor do I see a lot of strategy for success. What I do see is that HP, which was once one of the leaders in technology R&D, has settled into a role where it's fundamentally a printer company.

    Am I missing something?

    --
    Breakfast served all day!