Hewlett-Packard Break-Up

[aaronvan]

Hewlett-Packard Co.’s plan to break itself into two separate companies came as no surprise to customers, several of whom described the tech giant as behind the curve and less than fully responsive to their needs.

Wow, this was unexpected. Or was it?

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/10/05/h-p-failed-to-keep-up-with-market-cios-say

 

[maflynn]

Cnn is now reporting on this as well. I'm not surprised on one hand and on another hand I am.

The prior CEO lost his job in part for pushing a service only approach and spinning off the PC/Printer business. Now they're looking into this again, I guess the hardware sales are looking bleak and want to focus on services.

 

[Naimfan]

HP is dead. It just doesn't understand it yet.

It died the day it spun off Agilent and left HP a soulless hollow shell of a once-great company.

 

[AustinIllini]

HP is dead. It just doesn't understand it yet.

It died the day it spun off Agilent and left HP a soulless hollow shell of a once-great company.

I love how consumers say things like this. It's like people don't realize the Enterprise world doesn't exist.

Dell and Hewlett-Packard will continue to work in the enterprise realm, but from a consumer products world, I expect very little from either.

----------

Cnn is now reporting on this as well. I'm not surprised on one hand and on another hand I am.

The prior CEO lost his job in part for pushing a service only approach and spinning off the PC/Printer business. Now they're looking into this again, I guess the hardware sales are looking bleak and want to focus on services.

I fully expect the computer business to get bought out within the next 5 years. I think the Enterprise company is hoping to thrive without the hindrance of the consumer products division.

 

[Naimfan]

I love how consumers say things like this. It's like people don't realize the Enterprise world doesn't exist.

Dell and Hewlett-Packard will continue to work in the enterprise realm, but from a consumer products world, I expect very little from either.

Seek first to understand . . .

HP has made it this far by using the financial equivalent of rearranging its deck chairs. Once a leader in innovation, HP invests on average over the last few years less than half its revenue, by percentage, in R&D relative to IBM. And HP's margins were on the order of 8% compared to 27% for IBM. And that's after HP tried to make a serious push into services, where it continues to be soundly thrashed by IBM.

As for the enterprise hardware side? Pure commodity. Do you believe that is a winning strategy?

 

[rdowns]

As for the enterprise hardware side? Pure commodity. Do you believe that is a winning strategy?

Agreed. A commodity market where virtualization is eating into server sales, big time.