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HP Plans To Cut Product Lines; Company Turnaround In 2016

Posted by Soulskill on from the just-what-investors-like-to-hear dept.

dcblogs writes "Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman told financial analysts today that it will take until 2016 to turn the company around. Surprisingly, Whitman put some of the blame for the company's woes on its IT systems, which she said have hurt its internal operations. To fix its IT problems, Whitman said the company is adopting Salesforce and HR system Workday. The company also plans to cut product lines. It said it makes 2,100 different laser printers alone; it wants to reduce that by half. 'In every business we're going to benefit from focusing on a smaller number of offerings that we can invest in and really make matter,' said Whitman."

5 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. Re:zuh? by Lonewolf666 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't get it either. A dozen models for each market segment should provide variety enough, methinks. So
    -a dozen models for the SOHO market
    -a dozen for the bigger ones that may serve as department printers (one per corridor and shared by everyone
    -a dozen for oversize formats, so the CAD guys can print out big schematics
    -a dozen really fast models for high volume printing...
    . ...now I'm at about 50 models and running out of ideas. Maybe I'm a bit of an ignoramus, but I doubt I've just missed 95% of the market :-o

    --
    C - the footgun of programming languages
  2. Re:zuh? by P-niiice · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A lot of times, sellers willl request a custom model of a product - like a super-cheap model to draw people into a sale for example. These models usually vary slightly from an existing model (maybe it prints slightly slower or has a different paper tray). apparently HP has let these get out of hand.

  3. Saleforce? Hah by realmolo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When a company starts thinking that Salesforce (or any CRM, or any single piece of software) is going to save them, that means they are DOOMED.

    The fact that HP doesn't know this says a lot about how clueless they really are about IT, software, *and* business needs in general.

  4. 2,100 different laser printers by NikeHerc · · Score: 5, Funny

    640 printers is enough for anybody.

    --
    Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
  5. HP in permanent decline by twasserman · · Score: 5, Insightful
    For the past 10 years or so, going back to Her Worship (Fiorina), HP has been cutting staff. Total layoffs through Hurd, Apotheker, and Meg are now up to 100K. HP has decimated its R&D capabilities, to the extent that they are essentially incapable of creating innovative products, which partly explains their 2100 printers. Too many of the people who are left are lifers who know how to keep their jobs. Anyone who is capable of finding a job elsewhere has done so.

    If you are looking for a job, HP is a company without an interesting mobile strategy and a cloud strategy focused predominantly on IT services - not very attractive for entrepreneurial types, who have many other excellent opportunities.

    Finally, the 100K HP departees are not likely to purchase HP products or to recommend them in their new settings. That's a very large pool of people who are going to advocate for competing products.

    So the turnaround projected for 2016 is unlikely to happen, but it's a pretty fair bet than Meg Whitman won't be around HP when that day arrives.