Fiorina Says HP May Get Out Of The PC Business 250
Mikelgan writes: "Interex (the global HP user's group) is reporting that HP CEO Carly Fiorina told USA Today that HP may get out of the PC business altogether if the merger with Compaq fails. Here's the story."
No more PCs == no more notebooks? (Score:3, Interesting)
What'll be left of HP ??? (Score:2, Interesting)
once one of the best R&D companies of the planet reduced to a mere peripheral manufacturer is not a god thing.
this Fiorina chick is realy screwing the company. I was trying to sell my HP48G, but now I'll keep it for the sake of the good old times.
Re:Carly Fiona will still have a job? (Score:3, Interesting)
BTW, perhaps this culling of the herd in the mainstream PC market will have a positive effect on PC quality. Dell is adjusting to lower margins, Gateway has been hemorrhaging for some time, IBM's Personal systems group is wandering in the forest, and all the consumer PC groups of the top-tier manufacturers are beholden to Microsoft.
Hopefully a shake out in the PC sector will not affect the interesting non-PC tech these companies work on. Compaq's professional services still seem intact, though I'm dismayed of their ceding the high end server market to Intel. They're less of an interesting company since they sacked DEC. IBM seems largely unaffected by those pressures. HP's Printing tech seems to me hit and miss with various recent products, though such product floundering is understandable given how cheap the printer market has gotten. The demise of HP's calculator division is unfortunate. They also seem to be withdrawing from scientific computing and visualization markets. I suppose they will need a successful and well accepted rollout of Itanium products with an associated push towards Linux to resurrect themselves there.
The feuding corporate factions in all these companies in these trying economic times don't help either.
Regards,
Reid
If HP drops the PC business... (Score:5, Interesting)
Truly Sad to See Such a Great Company Struggle (Score:0, Interesting)
And CNET says she has VISION??? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yet Steve Jobs, who critics and pundits agree has great vision and has molded and changed the PC community dramatically despite the fact his computer does not make actual PCs, isn't listed?
And Carly has been with HP for about 2 years and hasn't really made any significant impact there beyond driving their stock price down.
HP makes decent printer hardware (except that POS OfficeJet series, which I own) and its PC hardware (which I worked on for 2 years) is adequate, albeit unremarkable. Perhaps Fiorina's departure could kill two birds with one stone--HP's PC business (so they can concentrate on what they do best--printers) and Compaq (whose PCs are among the rattiest things to maintain in the market).
/.
Re:Carly Fiona will still have a job? (Score:3, Interesting)
no impact ?!? (Score:2, Interesting)
Ask people who work there and you will see what I mean. Many people left because of the changes she brought... HP used to be a good company to work for, things change!
HP not doing well in the PC business is no news. It was already the center discussion of company meetings 4 years ago. HP at that time was saying that it could not keep in business if it was not in the top 3 (go figure why!) and it was already fourth at that time, and still slipping down.
It was making fun of Dell for being nothing more than a Pizza delivery company, and were discussing ways of getting back up where they belonged.
The only department making big profits was the printer division and the PC repair one (not a good sign huh!)
Anyway, I for one am not going to thread any tears for HP. The HP way, has become the HP no way!
Re:HP & Compaq isn't such a bad move. (Score:3, Interesting)
We dumped HP for Dell 'cause of service (Score:1, Interesting)
The best part was the HP service. Whenever we had a problem the HP field engineers knew how to fix it right, the first time. We were pretty happy campers.
Then HP had the bright idea to outsource all their service to Vanstar. The gorillas that they sent to fix our machines were barely A+ trained. I watched one day as one guy - who had brought the incorrect power supply with him - literally tried to hammer the new one in place, bending the crap out of the motherboard in the process.
After enduring this abuse for six months or so, with HP turning a deaf ear to our complaints, we voted with our feet. The next leases went to Dell. They don't have a nationwide field service organization either, but they're much more responsive than HP is these days.
'stoo bad, really. I did like those HP cans, and I did like the HP service folks. But HP doesn't stand behind the product anymore. When HP outsources the printer maintenance business it'll be interesting. Maybe we'll look back to IBM again.
"For the Record" from inside HP re these stories (Score:5, Interesting)
Posted January 16, 2002
The following memo was written to Embedded and Personal Systems (EPS)
employees from EPS President Iain Morris to set the record straight
regarding recent press reports on the future of Hewlett-Packard's PC
business.
Dear All,
I would like to wish each of you a happy and productive 2002.
I'm writing to you to set the record straight regarding recent press reports
on the future of our PC business. You may have seen an article this Monday
in USA Today which claims that Carly "warned that, should it [the merger]
fail, HP's vaunted printer and imaging businesses would be damaged and HP
might have to shut down its personal computer division."
This is not the first time the press has zeroed in on the notion that we
should exit the PC business. Rather than suggesting we exit PCs, Carly was
explaining the importance of the merger -- in the context of a range of
strategic alternatives -- as a way to fix our PC business. She was also
responding to Walter Hewlett's assertion that PCs are a challenging business
(yet he fails to offer any thoughts on how to improve it).
According to the full transcript of the interview, what Carly said was: "It
[the merger] allows us to fix our PC business. We can't get out of our PC
business. If I didn't care about laying off people, I could just shut it
down. But if I shut it down, I'd have to lay off a lot more than 15,000
people across two companies over several years. So, we have to fix our PC
business. And fixing our PC business requires volume and distribution
capability."
To further clarify her remarks, the 15,000 figure has been included in our
filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It refers to the
estimated number of employee reductions of the combined HP and Compaq
workforce, which will total about 15,000 people. It does not specifically
refer to the PC business. The reductions are expected to occur during the
first two years after the merger closes and will be achieved through a
combination of targeted job reductions and attrition.
It is important for you to know that HP remains committed to the PC
business. By merging with Compaq, we believe the cost-savings from the
anticipated synergies and economies of scale will lower the cost structure
of our combined PC business and have a positive impact on margins. We will
also be able to leverage the significant progress Compaq has made developing
its direct distribution capabilities to create a more flexible distribution
model for the combined company and help us address this important industry
issue.
By combining HP's strength in the consumer PC business and Compaq's strength
in the commercial PC business, we will create a more balanced industry
leader. We also intend to create sustainable value in our PC and other
personal systems businesses by innovating across emerging categories and
delivering a new generation of connected access and embedded devices.
The merger also will provide important benefits to HP's imaging and printing
franchise (also mentioned in the USA Today article). By improving operating
margins in our other business segments, we expect to increase our investment
in core IPS research and development and new IPS initiatives such as digital
imaging and digital publishing - investments that are crucial to maintaining
our leadership in the IPS business. According to Carly: "Imaging and
Printing is not a cash cow. It is a growth engine that has to be invested in
if we're to capture the real growth opportunities in Imaging and Printing
going forward."
Our vision is to become a premier provider of the end-to-end solutions our
customers now demand. That requires us to be a leader in imaging and
printing and computing and services. It requires us to be a leader in both
the enterprise and the consumer space. PCs remain an important part of the
end-to-end solutions we provide.
In closing, let me thank all of you again for staying focused on the
business at hand, and for continuing to help HP emerge an even stronger
competitor when the economy rebounds. Here's to delighting our customers,
delivering results and beating the competition.
Thank you,
Iain
M$ pc hardware (Score:1, Interesting)
About then, you will start to see an "Official M$ PC", and that'll become your only choice because soon after that, the next versions of WinWhatever will only run on their own hardware, that'll also coincide with the passing of laws that require PC's to have copyright control all over and within them. These will become the only kind of PC's legal to sell, own, posess or operate. Get caught running any older PC's without the copyright nazi stuff built in or with non-approved software or o/s (linux) and you'll be sentenced to prison as a cyberterrorist.