In nod to IBM, HP overhaul minimizes consumers

[pstokely]

Source: AP

Hewlett-Packard Co. is surrendering in smartphones and tablet computers and has put its personal computer division up for sale, as new CEO Leo Apotheker tries to transform the Silicon Valley stalwart into a twin of East Coast archrival IBM Corp.

The restructuring announced Thursday contains an unmistakable message: HP has failed to cater to both consumers and corporations. As a result, it needs to exit most of its consumer businesses, just as IBM did six years ago.

The overhaul will have three parts:

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/business/technology/article_b455cd53-1368-563b-a3e3-21a842457d32.html

[customerserviceguy]

1. Their products had become fairly crappy, anyway

Twenty years ago, an HP printer was a workhorse; after Carly Fiorina took them over, the stuff became junk.

[pam4water]

5. Still better than Dell and Gateway.

[Tempest]

19. After 3 decades of working with personal computers professionally

HP is the second worst in performance and reliability.

Dell is the best in both. Gateway is the worst.

[pam4water]

23. Maybe Dell sells better PCs to businesses. But for home computers they suck. And they

are the worst for forced proprietary replacement parts. Part that have not reason to be proprietary other than to jack up repair costs. And Dell and Gateway have a 33% failure per year of ownership so you are going to need repairs unless you get a new one every year.

[Tempest]

25. HP is the worst for proprietary replacement parts

I've worked in HP shops and you go with their parts or you void your warranty.

Dell is open. I use third party parts in all the Dells I support, whether under warranty or not and have had no trouble getting warranty service.


Dell and Gateway have a 33% failure per year of ownership

I would like to see the data on that. My experience supporting thousands of Dells for the federal government is that less than 3% fail per year.

[Xithras]

29. That's it exactly.

I tell people this on a regular basis. "If you want to buy a Dell, hit the Small Business section of their website and buy from there. You'll pay a little more, but you'll get a far better computer."

The consumer-class Inspiron and XPS machines are crap, because home buyers want their computers cheap and Dell obliges. Businesses, however, demand reliability over low prices, and get a better quality machine as a result. That's why Inspiron's (consumer class computer) start at $299 for home users, and Vostro's (business class computer) start at $379 for businesses...for similarly specced computers. While the performance may be roughly equal, the Vostro is built with far better parts.

Besides, if you buy a business class computer, you also get to use their business technical support department if you have a problem. I've never had to hold more than a minute, and the support reps are usually in the United States. Support for consumer class machines is in India.

[customerserviceguy]

26. Agreed

Before I was "customerserviceguy" I was "laptoprepairguy". HP's sucked. Dells were OK, I'm typing this on a Dell that I picked up cheap from someone who didn't want it, but I upgraded the hell out of it.

Yeah, Guessway really stinks! But Acer is down there, too.

[lapfog_1]

10. I don't think HP will unload printers.

Printers are a license to "print money" with the toner cartridge sales.

[mopinko]

14. yes they are. and hp is super jerky about it.

[sofa king]

2. Thanks, Carly!

What's a share of HP stock worth these days, anyway? Compared to the day before Carly Fiorina became CEO?

[Warren Stupidity]

4. seriously.

[DissedByBush]

11. Even the Republicans

Had a hard time liking her. Destroyed a great company.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. IBM retains its golden goose of mainframes to tide it through hard times.

HP has no such multi-billion dollar cash cow. HP essentially surrendered yesterday.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

7. Just because you have never heard of them doesn't mean they don't exist

HP has three such platforms, HP-UX, NonStop OS and OpenVMS and continues to support Alpha based Tru64.

[MurrayDelph]

15. It's just a shame

I haven't been able to find a VMS or Tru64 job in four years.

[Warren Stupidity]

16. Actually the counter argument is its printer business.

As that is its largest profit center.

[Tempest]

18. IBM's golden goose wasn't the mainframe division

It was the business application services division.

That's the division which makes up most of IBM's business.

[Warren Stupidity]

20. 40% of IBM's profits from mainframe sales and services.

Giant cash cow.

[Steerpike]

6. lol

Such a large group of Super Intelligent making such bad decisions. Maybe they should just try to go back to making fancy calculators for Engineering Students....oh wait...that was Texas Instruments.

[LAGC]

8. Sounds like their TouchPad failure is causing shock waves throughout the company.

It was supposed to give the Apple iPad a run for its money at the same price-point, but ended up flopping even after they slashed the price $200.

[targetpractice]

21. HP sold it's PC business partly because of the "tablet effect"

So, not only did the iPad kill the HP TouchPad, it helped kill the their PC business, too.

[wilt the stilt]

9. I still like their hardware

I think both their PC's and printers are very good. I have both of them. I don't think much of Dell and I have a lenovo(I5) which is very good.
Hardware is in the long run is losing business.
That being said HP was going in this direction for awhile. They bought the consulting arm(Perot) years ago and they are trying to buy Autonomy.
Like IBM they want to become a company that "owns" accounts. They want to provide the software and the solution throughout the enterprise.
I have worked with IBM at a major insurance company. They have people who have full time desks at this account.
HP wants to compete with IBM for these types of relationships. It will be a long and difficult task to compete in this arena.

IBM has end to end solutions with mediocre software. name the last piece of software that IBM made.
This whole Jeapardy thing was in essence bullshit. It was a marketing ploy. What happens is when large companies buy small software companies the innovation stops. Look at Computer associates. Same crap.

These "large companies" stop innovation.

[thelordofhell]

24. They just bought Autonomy for 11 billion

[CatholicEdHead]

12. Not a fan of their hardware at all

I stayed far away from HP Consumer machines and their business orientated ones looked and felt little more than rebranded consumer boxes. Even though Lenovo owns IBM's former PC division I still like the Thinkpad quality.

[wilt the stilt]

13. I have both a Lenovo and a HP business

level and both are built very well. I absolutely like their printers the best.

[Mr K]

17. This is good news for America!

Now with less people making PC's there is a bigger slot for local Americans to open computer shops in America employing Americans making computers out of chinese parts. (3 out of 4 could be worse)

[Xithras]

30. The days of the computer built at your corner store are largely over.

There will always be a few, for the same reason that there are still VCR and TV repair shops around, but the heyday of the small shops has ended. You have mass market computer makers like Dell pumping out $299 consumer desktops with 24-hour tech support, and those machines are reasonably reliable. It's not like the old days, when you could say "Sure, Packard Bell is cheaper, but our quality is much better!" Today, the average consumer is unlikely to notice a difference in performance or reliability between a locally sourced and a mass market computer. Business-class machines from major manufacturers like Dell are usually better than anything a small builder can assemble, because they have the resources to custom fabricate cooling solutions that are unavailable on the OEM market to smaller system-builders.

And, even if by some bit of business brilliance, a small builder COULD figure out how to crank out desktop machines that will match the performance and price points of the remaining large-scale manufacturers, they're still going to be faced with three major problems:

1. The profit margin is going to be so thin that they'll need some serious volume, which is very hard in a small shop. In 1992, the store I helped to run averaged $400 profit on every computer we sold. I haven't been in that business in a long time, but nowadays the margin on desktop computers is under $50. You'll have to sell a LOT of computers to pay your employees and keep the lights on.

2. Laptops have outsold desktops every year since 2005. While small builders can buy graybox chassis' and build their own laptops, the chassis builders tend to charge a lot of money for their product, and it's nearly impossible to offer something at a competetive price. The laptop market has always been the domain of the big manufacturers, and less than half of the PC buyers nowadays are interested in desktop computers.

3. Smartphones outsold PC's last year, and tablets are set to eclipse both desktop and laptop sales in the next few. The majority of home computer buyers only use their computers to surf the web, check email, and chat on Facebook. You don't need a full computer for that.

The PC market will be around for decades, but it's becoming less relevant to the average person, and the market for the small computer builder has largely evaporated. The tiny market that remains will continue to dwindle. Small computer shops are about as likely to see a resurgence as radio repair shops are.

[quakerboy]

31. I think you are slightly too negative

Gamers will keep at least a small set of the smaller shops going. Although Fry's and amazon and Ebay are making it harder even there.

Also, I think rebuilds will keep at least some stores operating. It has gotten to the point that performance wise, the average user would be hard pressed to really tell a huge difference between this years computer and 5 years ago. Which means that as "older" ones go kaput, combining bits and pieces can still turn out a usable machine to resell, at a decent price with decent margin.

I have seen a resurgence of small shops, mostly around the idea of repair, but most seem to incorporate both of the above, and between the three they seem to be surviving.

[Odin2005]

22. What a shame, I like Compaq PCs.

The 2 computers I have owned have both been Compaqs and both have worked almost flawlessly.

[jmowreader]

27. The most important thing they could do...

is to rename the computer company "Compaq, Inc." and sell the HP name to Agilent. I thought the way they broke that company up was dumber than dogshit when they did it, and I STILL think it's dumber than dogshit. Gee, guys, we have a company with two branches. One branch sells stuff that's unlike everyone else's and people will pay a premium for our name on it. The other branch sells commodity equipment that has to be exactly like everyone else's or it won't work, and it's bought almost exclusively on price. (The kewl kidz who need hand-tuned performance so they can run first-person shooters faster than anyone either buy Alienware PCs or they build their own.) No one with a grain of brain would have sold the branch Carly did.

[BiggJawn]

28. A friend asked my advise on buying a laptop...

He was considering a HP.
I suggested he buy a Toshiba. So far, he's very happy with it.