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HP Rethinking Wisdom of Spinning Off PC Division
bdking writes "After signing off on former CEO Leo Apotheker's proposal to spin off or sell HP's personal computer unit, the company's braintrust is reassessing the wisdom of dumping a division that contributes nearly 30% of revenue and holds together a valuable supply chain."
HP appears concerned not so much for the revenue generated by PC hardware, but instead by access to various distribution and supply channels. It seems that just announcing a spin-off has affected their access to retail distributors.
I won't purchase an HP device (didn't before, either) and don't recommend them to friends and family (didn't then, either). This is just reinforcement of my beliefs. Who wants to own a device, that the manufacturer doesn't want themselves?
Time to reboot and upgrade the kernel or something.
Did I miss something? Is HP begin run by Reed Hastings now?
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Fire the board, they showed their stripes years ago with Carly, and again with other bungled decisions. They have got to be the most incompetent board for any company of their size in the world. The board lost the HP way long ago, and it hasn't changed that much since then.
The whole rotting thing has got to go and the culture has to restored from the top. Nothing less will do.
Thats what happens when mbas take over running of corporations. Everything is geared towards teaching of maximizing profit minimizing costs in those programs in ultimate end, and even if some programs incorporate engineering concepts like systems management and so on, the mba types eventually lack on strategic planning and vision.
flop. thats what you get if you hire too much suits or put them in charge.
Read radical news here
When HP absorbed EDS they thought they'd finally be able to compete in the lucrative snake oil business of large scale "consulting" (a la IBM), but after a massive reorg and an almost precision extraction of any talent prevalent in the EDS husk they're left with nothing but the most clueless of drabs.
To watch them flail around and try to bail out of this self-inflicted situation by dumping their hardware division has been entertaining.
When it comes to HP, they're already in such bad shape that a loss in revenue might actually save the company.
Back when the PC business was mostly Compaq, they made systems that needed all manner of proprietary components. If they have other products which rely on that supply chain they're so deep in the doo-doo that they won't climb out. But the CEO shouldn't worry because even getting fired from that job is more lucrative than many others are.
These CEOs are obviously worth hundreds of times what a "normal" employee makes. We should pay them more for their outstanding decision making skills. Also looking at you, Reed Hastings.
giggity
I'm sure everyone has their opinion, but after throwing away a bunch of $2000 HP printers in the last year, we've had enough.
I started buying Xerox and Oki printers and so far, they have been fantastic. The Okis in particular seem to be built well enough to take a bullet, and the toner cartridges are huge compared to an equivalent HP printer, yet they are priced about the same.
I think we are done with HP forever at this point.
How much of that revenue comes from the huge bundle of pre-installed of demos?
However, their PC tower at a big box store was competitive priced compared with a generic import computer store.
Generally I don't support HP, tho I was very impressed with the Green packaging a friends new printer came with.. no plastic wrappers, instead it all was packaged in a re-usable shopping totebag and accessory pouch.
shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
I just got an email from HP about this. HP's Personal Systems Group is the #1 PC maker on the planet, and that won't change. I can assure you our future is brighter than ever. Spirit of a Startup Our preferred course to harness our vision of the future is to build a separate, more agile company. It's time to think like a startup again. It's time to be nimble and revolutionary. It's time again for world-changing innovation. And so, it's time we realized we're at a crossroads in an evolving HP. But don't misunderstand: We-the same great folks who make HP PCs today-will make them tomorrow. We will continue to build on our legacy creating reliable, stylish, and high-performance PCs to improve your personal and professional life.
Well, somebody has to use the Quikster name, might as well be them.
I'm sure everyone has their opinion, but after throwing away a bunch of $2000 HP printers in the last year, we've had enough.
I started buying Xerox and Oki printers and so far, they have been fantastic.
Your timing is prescient - all of our HP printers were recently replaced by Xerox machines at my workplace. They do put out some nice prints, although I wouldn't say they are better than the HP ones. I'm fairly insensitive to print-quality -- however, yesterday at a meeting with some clients that rarely see print-outs from my office, someone asked if we had just gotten new printers.
Anyway -- I have noticed that what I would call our Xerox "workgroup-class" printers are really loud. The analogy "It sounds like it's barfing a sheet of paper at a time" was used by two different people on two different occasions.
Especially Best Buy which is, I'm sure, a not insignificant partner. After the complete abortion that was Touchpad, retail stores are going to be hesitant about stocking up on product. HP shipped units to them, then almost immediately tanked the price and ran.
--- Do you believe in the day?
the company's braintrust is reassessing the wisdom of dumping a division that contributes nearly 30% of revenue and holds together a valuable supply chain.
Not to mention a significant chunk of jobs. We have enough unemployed (read: competition to get a job) as it is, thanks.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
I'm not going to belabor the point that the spin off wasn't a good idea. The problem now is that they're coming off as indecisive, unsure, rudderless, out of control, pick your metaphor.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Lastly, Win 8 finally appears to be an upgrade that may finally pry people off Win XP and truly offer integration across smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop and gaming (xbox).
Uh, what?
XP laptop and desktop users are waiting out Windows 7 so they can 'upgrade' to a crappy tablet interface?
That's some good stuff you're smoking.
I see a lot of really strange business trends going on. It seems so many companies are announcing terribly thought out decisions, and then reversing their opinion, and an entirely different set are content to do nothing but play a game with patents, where nobody builds or designs anything anymore, they just collect up the patents and sue people who actually are building and designing things. Why does this feel like some really weird corporate-hijinks fiction novel we're living in?
Another satisfied Brother user. The designed-to-be-refilled toner cartridges are great.
As for linux drivers, I find that's always the tip of the iceberg. Lack of linux drivers is an excellent indicator that windows versions get drop FAST, and crappy drivers in general. Canon, I'm looking at you.
Don't be so dismissive of MBAs... If you stop falling for the illusion that their 'business' is running businesses efficiently, and start viewing them as amoral rational actors feathering their nests at the expense of anybody whose pockets they can reach, you'll see that they are extraordinarily effective a locating targets, infesting them, sucking them dry, and then moving on, somehow not dragged down by their record of failure and occasional malfeasance...
Never make the mistake of underestimating a superb parasite because it is lousy at whatever non-noxious lifeform it is mimicking...
HP has always had extremely poor support at the consumer level, IMO. I remember about 10 years ago I wanted to buy a replacement Li-Ion battery for the OEM NiMH that came with my HP. With credit card and HP part number and SKU in hand, I called the HP store. I was transferred to literally 5 different people before I just gave up. I never did get a new battery, living with the ~40 minute degraded life of the NiMH for the next couple months.
I've had great success with their printers, though. I still think at the mid-to-high business end, they're very solid machines. I recently worked at an office that used Ricoh's, and never again with I touch Ricoh printers. They can't even get simply LDAP right...
HP's best products are its laser printers. Its most profitable products are probably its inkjet cartridges. If HP spins off its PC business it's going to have a harder time selling its laser printers and inkjet cartridge cartridges (aka printers).
Brain trust? If I was making decisions like this for a company, I would *THINK* about the effects of the change and how that affects other parts of the company. I would do this *in advance*.
This is why you're not a billionaire hedge-fund manager.
Thats what happens when engineers take over running of corporation. Everything is geared towards teaching of maximizing profit minimizing costs in those programs in ultimate end, and even if some programs incorporate business concepts like systems management and so on, the engineers types eventually lack on strategic planning and vision.
The PC business is a tough business to be in. You have a lot of competition. Dell, Lenovo, Apple. The home consumer market is more willing to hold on to their PC for 2 more years and get themselves an iPad or a smart phone. So what is this strategic plan of keeping desktops to the future? There isn't really much. You might as drop it to a smaller firm who will nurture it more, and try to really fit in the niche market segment.
As I am using a Lenovo Think Pad right now, I have to say IBM is happy, Lenovo is happy, and the people who made the transitions from IBM to Lenovo are happy. The problem is sometimes companies get too diverse, and need to sell off units that they are distracting from their core business or perhaps may be hindering it mind share.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
...with fire. And put through a wood chipper. Makes using networked HP printers, which we've used for decades, pure hell.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
After getting tired of screwing around building PCs from parts I decided to get one of the hp ready to ship models. I'm quite satisfied. It was easy to set up, runs every game I want to play and is stable. I also had one of their TouchSmart all-in-one models (where the computer is built into a touch screen). It was quite nice but someone stole it. The point is, hp does have some good products coming out of the PC division. It would be stupid to let it go just because margins are small.
We buy oodles of them. A shipment of ten every week or so. We clone them and crank them and prep them and deploy them in a neverending cycle to keep our clients (many of whom are also growing) up to date with decent machines. Their business class desktops are reliable little workhorses, and my office was nervously considering the prospects of what we would have to do if the supply of HP boxes disappeared. I volunteered to hand build machines from kits, but I don't think my boss took me seriously.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Don't even joke about that!!
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
When I heard they were "considering" spinning off their PC division my first thought was...Guess who's sales of PC electronics just took a nose dive? Sure their margins are razor thin but they had sales. Who wants to buy a product that may not be supported in 6 mo. because the company that made it no longer supports it. Granted hp does that now but the consumer has the illusion of a supporting company. I've watched hp squander opportunity after opportunity. Perhaps it's the Digital Equipment Corporation curse. DEC floundered and it's carcass was purchased by Compaq in 1998. It gave Compaq indigestion and they were swallowed by hp in 2002. Now hp is circling the drain.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
They started as a gadget company - lab devices. They got into printers. then computers. Then software services after buying DEC and EDS. I presume they were emulating IBM which moved mostly our of hardware into integrated services.
I refuse to buy a printer that doesn't support postscript. Who needs vendor-specific drivers when there have been standardized page-layout languages for decades?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Yep. As far as I'm concerned the best part of HP was spun off long ago.
WTF? Seriously? Is there some kind of legitimate fear that stores that can't sell HPs crappy PC's will stop selling their crappy printers? The other major printer companies don't sell PC's, and they seem to be doing just fine.
Yes, because HP has shown themselves to be masters of the art of running a business....
I thought we were discussing buying a HP computer not HP stock? If they build a decent PC its an option, who cares about the boardroom/c-suite antics. Many computers are purchased from local white box PC clone shops. How likely are they to be around next year, yet they seem to remain an option.
That said, it is terribly sad to be thinking of HP in this way.
I had the HP6L and that thing was a workhorse for almost 10 years. My newer HP laser printers are very solid but some don't have Mac drivers.
HP laptops on the other hand only last a little bit longer than the warranty period. They tend to overheat and fail almost as much as Acers from my experience.
Yeah, yeah, yeah 30% revenue, supply chain and channels of communication... Well it is not a serious problem. Easily solved by firing the CEO, pay for his/her golden parachute and then hiring another hot-shot CEO with a bigger parachute.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Seriously, HP would be better off bringing back manufacturing to the states and getting control of their pipelines. By doing what IBM, and Dell did, they will see that they lose the ability to compete with Chinese companies that simply steal the tech and idea. However, if HP brings it back, they gain control. To br
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Uh, what?
XP laptop and desktop users are waiting out Windows 7 so they can 'upgrade' to a crappy tablet interface?
That's some good stuff you're smoking.
Exactly. If people didn't move to Win 7, they're not moving. The only thing that will get people off Win XP is driver support.
Advice: on VPS providers
driver support.
Read: Forced upgrades due to lack of driver support.
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
not only will they make it through, they'll be less top-heavy and more bouyant in the end.
i mean, why should they rethink it? they're going to revolutionize computing in two years. shouldn't the focus be on getting existing warehouse and/or factory space down to bare minimal and ready to process memristor based components? they can get ahead of the game by cleaning out and retooling right now.
i wish i had the money to invest. surely remarks such as they're making will drive down the value of their stock, and they'll have another opportunity to only have shareholders on who are genuinely interested in the product and who know what they're got their hands on. this will make them smarter long-term investors who are more likely to hold onto their stock during mild troubles.
it's a great strategy, if that's what they're doing. it should be a model for the future: being honestly concerned about one's own business decisions, in front of everyone. the whole "don't lose your cool" presence has........ strained...... things.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
If it does not support the PostScript Universal Printer Driver, they cut corners on the printer and you are gonna get bit.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
These guys are making decisions that seem ridiculous on their face, and flip flop them weeks later.
Is this a consequence of the decline of American education finally reaching the CEO-aged generation? Or are these people just idiots that will believe anything Excel or PowerPoint tells them?
but systems management is an engineering discipline and field. please dont try to bullshit your way with stuff you dont know. it was only in mid 90s that the mba programs started to include systems management.
Read radical news here
In the previous HP article
Is it just me or does HP look like a fish laying on the dirt, flailing around gulping for non-existant water?
HP must be confusing the meaning of the word "wisdom"
A few months ago, Harvey Norman (a large Australian Retail Chain - think Best Buy down under) had an exclusive on the HP TouchPads.
They were going for a big Push on the weekend, with discounts of over $100 off List price. They had billboards at Bus Stops and had reserved prime advertising space in the big Daily Newspapers for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
On the Thursday before, Leo killed the Touchpad.
The Harvey Norman group decided to retaliate by selling their entire stock of HP Products at Cost. They replaced their Newspaper Ads with iPad Ads including the slogan "The only Tablet you would want to buy". They also surplussed other electronic goods at or below cost price. (I picked up a Sony Blu-Ray player for less that AU$100.00).
Innovation extends beyond slapping different plastic on the same old products. At least they are honest enough to admit they are not capable of actual innovation.
People who pay the extra money for a name brand PC with warranty and support wish for the company to be around, and to be able to provide future product care. If HP's executives no longer know how to run a business, that raises serious concerns for PC buyers (and enterprise ones too)
There are toner page counters in the high-end stuff. It's how the consumables monitoring/reporting works, and that's good to have. It's just the printer firmware doesn't refuse to work once the page count exceeds the rated life.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Somewhere in China there's a factory that makes the internals for ALL cheap printers and depending on incoming orders puts them in a slightly different case and slaps a different sticker on the box.
While there are some shared laser print engines, I've also seen quite a bit of differentiation.
For example, Espon's inkjets don't appear to share much of anything with HP. The carriage is a very different design, the paper feed mechanism is a different layout, the control software has nothing in common, and the drivers are night-and-day different. HP's drivers are hundreds of megabytes and buggier than Maine in June; Epson's are 3-5 MB and are well-behaved.
Or compare HP's laser printers with Lexmark. Lexmark uses a two-piece design for consumables (separate toner and photodrum), while HP uses a single cartridge for both. Again, HP's driver is bloated and unstable; Lexmark's is compact and unobtrusive.
Now, they might well all be assembled in the same factory in Malaysia, but if so, it's out of different parts.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.