HP To Cut 30,000 Jobs

Axolotl_Rose writes with news that Hewlett-Packard is preparing to cut around 30,000 jobs, close to 10% of its total workforce. CEO Meg Whitman reportedly wants to use that money instead for new products and for bolstering the sales force. From the NY Times: "China, which is one of H.P.’s highest growth areas, will probably be spared, as will its research and development efforts. Ms. Whitman, who became H.P.’s chief executive last September, 'is trying to build a new company,' one senior executive said of the job cuts. 'You can count this as a part of that.' The final plan is expected to be announced on Wednesday, when H.P. announces earnings for its second fiscal quarter. Considered a slow-moving giant in the tech industry, H.P. had revenue of $127 billion in fiscal 2011, but net earnings of just $7.1 billion. While it has a leading position in the sales of low-margin personal computers, H.P. has been late or unsuccessful in many recent tech trends like providing cloud computing services for big companies and smartphones and tablet computers." An article at Forbes suggests HP should instead 'retool' those jobs by recruiting makers and hackers, TED conference speakers, and others who have experience building and inventing things.

Comments

wait... what???

[starblazer]

HP still has a R&D division? Has hell frozen over? Is a CEO being intelligent for once??

Re:wait... what???

[aztracker1]

Well, their laser printers are decent (not the all-in-one inkjets), the Touchpad is/was awesome and webOS is hands down the best tablet OS around today. Unfortunately their management totally sucks and they don't know how to control quality, perception of value, or market their goods.

Bad CEO replaced by bad CEO replaced by bad CEO

[tomhath]

Carly Fiorina gutted the company and put it into a tailspin. Hurd took over and promised to fix things by gutting the company. Now Whitman has taken over and promised to fix things by gutting the company. I hate to see HP go, at one time it was a great company, but they lost their way under Fiorina and never recovered.

Re:Disgraced Republican Candidate for Governor

[toadlife]

My favorite part of that campaign was when Whitman went on and on about how '30 years ago everything was great in California', forgetting that 30 years ago was during the tail-end of her opponent's first two terms as CA governor.

Saddest Part

[Lord of the Fries]

"While it has a leading position in the sales of low-margin personal computers."

How ironic and sad that this is HP's claim to fame now days. There was a time when this was simply so not true. There was a time when you bought HP stuff (and you paid top dollars for you), you knew you could throw it against a wall or drive a car over it and it just kept working. Quality was #1, bar no competition. That was back when the engineers still had a bit of say in what went down there.