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HP Splitting Up Confirmed
ChrisMul writes "We just heard the announcement over the company wide speaker system. Hewlett-Packard IS splitting into two companies. One will be a "Testing and Measurements" company who's name has yet to be chosen, and the other will be the computing division, which will keep the "HP" name. This is going to happen as they company also chooses a new CEO...time to find a new job... "
Good news for stock holders...
Bad news for employees?
I'm surprised they didn't do this long ago. I hope this will inject some new life in the computer division.
name since that was the original focus of the company.
Otherwise, I think it's a good thing.
They need to dump a few (like, alot) middle managers and top executives to really turn the company around.
A good name for the T&M division would be:
Fudge Packard
> ...time to find a new job...
Personally, I would've started looking long ago.
About the time that H-P first sullied their
good name by climbing into bed with Microsoft.
I used to be a big H-P fan. Not so much of their
computing platforms, but certainly their test
equipment and calculators. Ever since they "went
Windows", they've been off my "highly regarded"
list. (Fear that the same cluelessness that
resulted in the one direction would be reflected
in other products, I suppose.)
Is it just me, or do H-P's actions begin to
look something like deja vu all over again?
Didn't another major, and once-highly-respected,
company try some pretty radical moves to rescue
itself before ultimately disappearing entirely?
IBM makes better *everything* anyway...
We all know how Microsoft spies and fellow travellers have infiltrated Slashdot. The International Microsoft Conspiracy never sleeps! Be on your guard, true Americans!
I ask you: Did you ever see a Microsoft employee drink a glass of water?
Excuse me, I have to go now. Some women are being drawn to me, and I must deny them my essence.
Hate to argue the point, but ever heard of Lucent?
Speaking as an HP'ite, I think this is a great idea. The Test and Measurement portion of HP is a fairly slow growing business. The slow growth and need to share resources with the faster moving computer businesses has held back the computing division for a while. With this division, HP (the new HP) can focus on what is really driving our business: computers. As for those that argue HP is slipping because they are in bed with MS, I have but this to say: Phooey. Listen, Linux rocks and we all know it, but MS is where the money is right now. HP has never said they were out to do anything but make money (kind of a good reason to go into business don't you think?) and MS is the big money maker on the block. If that starts to change, expect HP to change right along with it, (HP is, by the way, shipping servers with RedHat, but I guess that's old news.) but until then, why lose market and *mind* share to competitors? Nobody ever won something by not playing. Heh, here endith the rant.
Is that a mixture of the IBM S&M and T&A divisions? *groan*
:)
This is the first time I heard SGI and
"learn from experience" in the same sentence.
...kneegritchanthropopithicus.
---
MonkeySpanker
I suggest naming the new company "Packard/Hewlett" and giving them responsibility for the company's UNIX product...
Hi, I'm a spy from Microsoft. The sinister Lord Gates summoned me to his stronghold and ordered me to post stupid gibberish on Slashdot. He warned me that in Slashdot posts, as in network protocols, differentiation can be a real challenge. How can I make my stupid gibberish distinctive? How can I make it stand out from all the other stupid gibberish? It's a tough question. Mainly, I post as an over-enthusiastic advocate Perl advocate, so as to convince free-software adherents that this very useful tool must actually suck, because it's advocated by idiots. Sometimes I praise GNOME, and sometimes I praise KDE. It's been tough going, but recently I got a real break.
Wanna know what it was?
I'll tell ya.
It's been a secret, but now I think we can reveal to you the truth.
We hired Malda.
He's our boy now. All of the recent database problems were due to the switch over to MS SQL server. He's got it working now, unfortunately. We may have to punish him for that, because our core goal in this project has been to run Slashdot entirely on Microsoft products while claiming that it was all free software, thus letting the free software community take the blame for our bugs. Now that Malda has betrayed us, we're outing him. So you see, MS products really ARE good, after all!
You heard it here first.
Feed me boy! Feed me!
You know, I first heard of HP as a "Testing and Measurements" company. They had THE BEST test equipment in the business; you could drive a tank over their power supplies. It's interesting that HP will be a computer company now, and their Testing and Measurement division will be somebody else.
Don't forget the company-wide television system; It gives the cafeteria a wonderful airport terminal ambiance.
ummm, doing quite well last I looked. They go by just "Digital" now mostly. They make all sorts of things and many billions of dollars.
They both pulled a profit but the computer divisions was in line with expectations wheras TMO was WAY the hell off.
id (playing q2 on my win machine with out my password)
Gotta love the 92. I had one until recently when I lost it in my goddamn physics class! Now I have the TI-89. Definitely a superior machine. Combines the best features of the 92 and the 85, not to mention built-in assembly support(without hacking, even!)
you best just leave us alone is right, junior.
Title says it all!
They haven't done much on the calculator side for the past five years, except fixing bugs (how long since rev. R for the 48GX? I have no idea.) A shame really, the fact that it took TI that long to barely catch up just shows how good the H-P calculators are. I'd hate to see them marginalized by the likes of TI, but it will happen if they continue resting on the laurels. H-P are you listening?
I personally call the company wide TV system
"Orwellovision". It is a nice distraction while
eating lunch!
Nope, I just shaved this morning, :)
and I can still use the my HP48
Only a few years ago, when I heard the name HP I thought about quality products. Calculators, instruments, the laserjets.
Nowadays, I don't. I think your average wintel PC's, and cheap inkjets (mine only lasted a couple of years, broke down just as the guarantee was up).
I'm hanging on to my HP48, but that's it, thank you very much.
That's only half the story. I was told by a senior manager in HP's instrumentation division that they have earmarked a lot of money for the Y2K problem. But when pressed he admitted that they can't possibly fix the Y2K problems in all that old stuff lying around the hospitals. He told me the money is for lawsuit settlements.
My guess is that HP figure the instrumentation division will be badly harmed by the Y2K fall-out. Only by splitting the company and giving the instrumentation division a different name to muddy the waters can HP protect their computer business from all that bad publicity. If they manage to separate completely then they can also protect the computer business from the instrumentation company's debts, should those Y2K lawsuits go badly.
Exactly.
I see the name branding is much more important to test&meas.
I wonder why they did it the other way.
Yep, my best friend works at T&M. It is (was?) a great place to work.
If any of you read the news you would know that HP is trying to get out Microsoft's bed and start pushing Linux platforms. Look at Excite.com and you will see a headline that reads HP ready to make major Linux push. This split is a great thing for HP and I think you all will be amazed to see what it will do for the company.
Nose up the corporate butt, huh?
I work for TMO, we are no,longer tied to HP-UX!
HELLO LINIX.................
WOLF
I do admin a few HP-UX boxes... definetly my least favourite of six I keep here.
My question is, what does this do for the part of HP that made their best product ever, the HP-48GX calculator. I always used to love going down the calculator aisle and laughing b/c of how great my HP was. Now, I will concede that TI (the TI-92) has caught up to the power of the 48G series. Will they innovate the handheld computing market again? Please? I need RPN... and I don't know an engineering mind who doesn't carry an HP.
Posted by planders:
Can anyone explain this? I didn't know VAR's core competency was in hard core software engineering such as would be required to accelerate IA-64 for Linux. It's not a criticism, just an expression of surprise. I knew that Cygnus was working with Intel for a 64 bit egcs, but I thought VAR was purely a hardware house. Perhaps VAR is working on motherboard designs and not software? Please correct me if I am wrong.
Posted by jguest:
Sounds more like a protective move. Keep the profitable test and measurement group safe...
HP's having a lot of problems with HPUX 11.
Just name once company Hewlett and the other Packard?
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Depends.... Their revinue may be dropping so fast that this doesn't matter.. Another factor to include is increased material fees (different offices, moving, etc). It could spell disaster for many employees.
I heard something interesting at dinner with friends of my Dad (he was in Hewlett-Packard's Medical Electronics division for decades): Word from the "old-timers" at HP is that HP would like to divest itself of the medical business. Supposedly HP got into the medical field because Bill Hewlett wanted it. As long as he's alive (maybe not much longer) they'll be in it, but once Bill Hewlett's gone, they'll try to sell HP Medical, since it's not making any real money for them anymore. The most likely buyer is some company in Sweden, I can't remember the name, or a company in Minneapolis. The HP old-timers said there's a push to emphasize the computer side of the business.
If HP's computing stays in bed with Microsoft as much as they have, doing their best to kill Java, etc., I just don't see how this will work for HP as a strategy. They seem intent on becoming basically just another Wintel reseller, and I don't think that particular commodity market will give them the breathing room they need to survive. If HP decided to embrace Java -- in an honest way --they *could* transform themselves into a systems integrator for the Linux/Web Age par excellence. But then again, IBM may have beat them to it. I think Lew Platt, current CEO, has probably killed this once proud company by cutting a Faustian bargain with Microsoft. Hopefully SGI will learn from HP's experience...
Java is a buzzword with no substance behind it.
There was a recent article posted on news.com about the Truth behind Sun. Sun themselves recognize how worthless Java is as a product, however it's buzzword potential is staggering.
Sun's been going around bandying the word 'Java' to gain name recognition, and now that people know who they are, they're starting to sell hardware at a tremendous pace.
I don't see how embracing Java would ever do anything for HP. I agree that they need to be innovative, but using some intelligence rather than buzzwords is what has made HP succeed over the years.
So which company will be making the calculators?
Pewlett Hackard? Nah, sounds more like a law firm.
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
eggs-acktly!
Having worked for both T&M (Santa Rosa) and CSO (unix shop in FC) 5 yr total, I decided they were f*cked in the long haul, so I started looking. It took about a week to find a job that paid 15K more for the same work and with a big stock option signing bonus. It ain't quite as cozy as HP, but it will pay off in the long run. Plus in a smaller company you can see what you do effecting it, whereas inside hp you rarely see an individual make a diffrence.
I have a lot of other issues with hp, but I won't bore you with a rant on that....
I haven't seen any problems with the computer division, but last year T&M came in about 40% under quota! Of course that's when I quit 5 months ago....
T&M lost money because of asia's problems mostly, but they were still way behind in the US market.
I agree. 'Specially since I work for the
Lightwave Division (in the Test and Measurement
Organization). What's going to happen to the
HP Way?
How fascinating!
/.
This is too perfect!
I got my copy of the book "Open Sources" over the week end and was reading the whole thing yesterday. In the final chapter, ESR made a prediction that some UNIX companies are going to go, probably SCO or HP.
It's sad to see it come true so soon.
--
Weiqi Gao (aka IIO) my sixth(?) post on
-- Weiqi Gao weiqigao@speakeasy.net
Building brand?
That's the division which started HP, computers were a more recent sideline that got profitable.
Too bad they're changing name, you say "HP" and I think "oscilliscope".
Actually, I've considered looking for a REALLY long time....this will just accelerate my search a bit. It's good to be with a company as they reach their peak...it's bad to stick around until the last shovel of dirt is in the grave...I can't imagine a resume ever recovering...
I was also talking with some of my coworkers, and they all agree, this is a last ditch effort to basically save the company. Anyone have any ideas of other companies that have attempted a similar route and succeeded/failed?
Take a tiny company that starts in a garage, but is treated like Rolls Royce from day one. Run it for half a century as the darling of all its users, and the envy of all its competitors. See it grow steadily to a substantial size. Run it so well is survives the end of the cold war, when most instrumentation companies fell into chapter 11. Watch the misfortune of letting the company fall into the hands of incompetant management, and then LET THEM CHOOSE THEIR OWN SUCCESSORS.
Why doesn't corporate America ever FIRE cretins in top jobs? How does this bunch of losers end up as winners, retiring comfortably, when the good guys loose their jobs with minimum payout packages?
Why isn't Mr Platt already in possession of the customary two warning letters, saying his performance is inadequate?
HP makes great instruments. You never had to worry about them acting insane (old Keithley stuff was a nightmare). The GPIB interface always works like it was documented. The documents themselves are very thorough. I love using HP instruments, even though they are a little more expensive.
Why does the computer part keep the name??? Who cares about HP computers? They can change that name, but HP means something with scientific and engineering equipment.
Or what. They are admitting that MS and the competitive pressures of the unix market need to have them slim down the company. Not a bad idea, really. The IPO idea is also a great way to raise cash.
-- Perl Hack, Web Hack, SQL Hack, Guitar Hack
DEC was acquired, not divested. *HUGE* difference. 180 out.
buster