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HP To Combine PC, Printer Divisions
itwbennett writes "Apotheker wanted to sell off HP's PC division, Whitman vowed not to, and now HP is combining the PC division with the printer division in an effort to cut costs, unnamed sources told the All Things D blog. Given that both divisions reported declining sales last quarter, is HP hoping that two wrongs make a right?"
Oh wait, they already do that.
No, but the power supplies will have chips in them that run out every 6 months, and you'll have to get a replacement - which costs about 75% of the cost of a new machine.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
"PC Load Letter" will finally mean something! The fact that it means that your motherboard won't POST until you refill the paper tray and replace all ink cartridges with cryptographically verified and datestamped new ones(see also, HP 'all-in-one' devices that refuse to scan if the printer's consumables are not in good order...) is sort of a downer; but at least that puzzle will finally be solved...
More seriously, I imagine that there might be some economies to be wrung out of combining two divisions that both specialize in the logistics of rebadging and regurgitating plastic shit; but I cannot think of a single positive design or engineering lesson to be shared between the two.
That is actually a part of their corporate philanthropy policy: By setting the price of their printers at approximately what they are worth, rather than their cost of production, and the price of their ink as though it were FDA-approved for human surgical applications, HP has contributed more free steppers and sensors to the hobbyist robotics community than just about anybody else...
Five years ago, HP made pretty nice printers and pretty crappy computers.
Now they make pretty nice printers and pretty crappy computers, but the print drivers are so horrible (and bloated) they might as well give you a rock and call it a printer.
If HP hadn't more or less gutted itself(between spinning off the good stuff as 'Agilent' and the Carly era), there might have been one thing to hope for:
Purely for the pointless nerd-value, who among us would not smile to see a line of x86 PCs that, instead of a BIOS or EFI, had a firmware based on the unholy fusion of the design principles of Open Firmware; but with an extended PJL command set, rather than Forth, as the underlying language?
It'd be magnificently pointless(as would the postscript and PCL RIPs implemented entirely in SMM); but the world would be a better place for it having existed...
I don't know what the revenue breakdown is between consumer and pro markets, but HP's printer division also produces really high-end devices. The sorts of printers that print huge banners and posters - they'll take paper a couple of metres wide and of any length. These are really expensive, but you buy the ink in huge bottles for about the same price as a tiny cartridge for their consumer printers.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
HP still makes some of the best printers in the world. The difference is that they now also make a load of cheap consumer crap.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
More likely they are combining their losers in preparation of either selling them to someone, or spinning them off into their own company.
Putting them together makes jettisoning them at some point easier.
if i need to print a few pages every few months i'll do it at work?
You haven't eliminated your need to print at home, you're just stealing the service form your employer rather than paying for it yourself...get off your high horse thief.
I agree, their commercial offerings are still real printers. But the consumer side is a nightmare. I wonder how they justify a 300mb driver install in a consumer machine when you compare it to a 90mb install for a commercial plotter printer? Not to mention that the aforementioned 300mb driver install takes nearly an hour when AV is active.
This actually might not be a bad idea. If we could apply the miniaturization craze to printers that has been used on computers, maybe we could end up with a laptop that can spit out hard copies on request. Obviously it wouldn't have a huge reserve of blank paper, but for things like a boarding pass, movie ticket, or even just a quick print of the photo you just took, this could prove to be a useful idea. As small as current gen laptops have gotten I think you could combine one with a printer (and scanner too) without exceeding the 'reasonable to carry in a shoulder bag' size limit.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
you can't print without a driver, tray icon, update app, update app for the update app, scanner tray app, and update app for the scanner app