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| HP Continues to Flounder |
| By Howard Fosdick on 2012-08-29 20:25:51 |
| Can Hewlett-Packard bounce back? Third quarter results are in and they don't look good. Total revenue is down 5% year over year, and profits tanked on a $9.2 billion noncash write-down on the 2008 EDS acquisition. What's HP's strategy? Meg Whitman has now been CEO of the struggling giant for a year. She compares HP's turnaround to that of Starbucks, saying "Usually these kinds of turnarounds take anywhere between four or five years... There's nothing fancy about these turnarounds. This is not advanced business, this is 101." I question if refocusing on core competencies is enough. Maybe HP needs to get into the smartphone and tablet markets. Maybe it needs to expand its services business. Think I'm wrong? Then bet your money on HP stock and get rich. HPQ trades at its lowest point in a decade and sells for an rock bottom forward P/E of 4.2. |
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| It's not enough |
| By Yamin on 2012-08-29 21:54:42 |
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HP... and many others will need to find new markets or do new things. 1. The actual equipment makers are releasing products themselves. Apple releases its own products. Microsoft is venturing in that realm too. What is left of simply reselling is a very low-margin business. 2. Services is very tricky. Again, the actual product companies are increasingly accessible on their own. Microsoft/Apple... are hosting their own services. As are a myriad of other companies. So there is less room for HP to simply go to customer sites and install such services. I don't want to overemphasize this point. But it is a dangerous trend for companies like HP. I don't know what HP is going to do. IBM made a good transition to services. It's possible I guess... But it's going to be a major uphill battle. |
 - Score: 3 |
| Probably the opposite direction... |
| By Luke McCarthy on 2012-08-29 22:39:50 |
| ...and retreating from PCs and consumer devices. Didn't they announce they were getting out of the PC market a while back? What happened to that? Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea after all. They seem to have a bad reputation of overheating laptops. The Z1 AIO workstation looks cool but is out of my price range and a lot more expensive than an equivalent PC + monitor of the same specs. And it looks like Intel's Thin Mini-ITX platform will soon take over that space. |
| - Score: 1 |
| Comment by Fransexy |
| By Fransexy on 2012-08-29 22:44:15 |
| The BeOS CURSE? |
| - Score: 1 |
| They need new products |
| By jgfenix on 2012-08-29 22:57:43 |
| Some years ago Apple was a computer company. If they had concentrated in their core bussiness they wouldn´t have made the iPod and the iPhone. |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE: Comment by Fransexy |
| By judgen on 2012-08-30 07:32:00 |
| What do you mean? HP owns nothing of Be Assets. And ACCESS that does is doing quite well, look at their nikkei status. |
| - Score: 2 |
| Printers and stuff... |
| By UltraZelda64 on 2012-08-30 07:53:15 |
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When I think of HP, I think of printers, scanners and stuff like that. I've owned a few things by them, and when it comes to printers theirs are the only ones I buy (because, you know, Linux support is pretty important to a me, plus I've always had good experiences with their printers in the past). I never did get the point of them getting into the PC business, never bought one myself, and would never recommend anyone else to get one. I guess it's just that "HP = computer peripherals" image I have. The fat that they bought Compaq--a company I couldn't stand--sure didn't help their image in my mind. Either way, whatever happens to them, I don't care what happens to their PC division (they can drop it for all I care), but I would be upset if anything happened to their peripherals division. Also, while I haven't bought any of their portable computing devices like tablets, I don't mind seeing them stay in there. But PCs... again, that just doesn't seem right to me. |
| - Score: 2 |
| Services business |
| By Lennie on 2012-08-30 08:03:59 |
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One of HP's focuses is already the services business. For example they are creating their own cloud offering based on OpenStack and they want corporations to use their system to build private clouds. Which can be combined to create hybrid clouds. Whatever that means ;-) |
| - Score: 2 |
| try hiring an engineer as CEO |
| By unclefester on 2012-08-30 08:33:07 |
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Here's a novel idea. Sack Whitman and hire an engineer or scientist as CEO. The best way to send a high tech company broke is to employ someone from a consumer goods marketing background (eg Steve Ballmer, Mike Spindler or Carly Fiorino) as CEO. Mercedes-Benz has a policy that all the highest level executives require a PhD in mechanical engineering . They are still going strong after 130 years. [edit -typo] Edited 2012-08-30 08:33 UTC |
| - Score: 2 |
| good hard with bad soft. ware. |
| By CavemanGR on 2012-08-30 08:39:06 |
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What is happening now to HP is the revenge of the pissed customer. Great printers, great scanners: BUGGY, UGLY, impossible to get rid of, SLOW supporting software. Laptops overbloated with weird software that never is used. HP for years manufactures products that make you angry towards HP when you try to use them. If "great products bring great profits" then this is NOT hp's case... HP scanners work decently only on ... Linux! O tempora o mores. Edited 2012-08-30 08:39 UTC |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE: Services business |
| By zima on 2012-08-30 08:53:17 |
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Fog computing. (if a large enough number of ~techies would start using this term, eventually that could result in general adoption ...overall, I believe "fog" is a much more precise analogy) Edited 2012-08-30 08:58 UTC |
| - Score: 2 |
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