Just what is HP up to?



  • I'm hoping someone can point out an obvious strategy or something.


    A while back, HP announced they were dumping their successful PC manufacturing business, and that the Touchpad and Pre3 were being pulled. Ok, clearly the management had been smoking something, but alright, whatever. So we get our fire sale $100 Touchpad and the promise of a $75 Pre3. Except the Pre3 doesn't look like it was ever sold for $75 in the UK where the price was announced; it was up for £299 ($486) for a while and then disappeared from HP's site, for a while redirecting to their laptops section for no discernible reason. Now it's "sold out". Yeah. Ok. Meanwhile, Blakey's TouchPad order from B&N was mysteriously canceled among many others on Amazon. Now they're being sold in the UK for £399 for the base model. ($648) The people they have manning the phones don't know what's going on. Inconsistencies in the website signify they don't know what's going on. They're deleting posts on their Facebook wall apparently about it. All I can picture of this is two men in suits fighting over a keyboard, one saying "Fire sale!" and the other one saying "Rip off the British!"



  • @nexekho said:

    I'm hoping someone can point out an obvious strategy or something.

    HP is switching its focus on software, this is where they see growth and value. They are buying a software company for 10bn. The wisdom of this move can be discussed at length, but that's that. For now on, any weird situation involving HP hardware is likely to be a side-effect of the confusion and conflicting interests appearing in the soon-to-disappear divisions.



  • Obviously HP's board has obviously been infiltrated by a Dell agent.

    Slightly more seriously, they want to become IBM Lite, basically offer nothing but expensive and really really shitty software and extremely expensive consulting services to help make the software slightly less shitty. This works for IBM because... well I have no idea how it works for IBM, frankly, but I assume it has something to do with bribing C*O levels. HP, I think-- I hope-- is doomed.

    (BTW, how the hell is selling software and selling consulting for said software not seen, by companies, as a huge conflict-of-interest? Because it totally is! The reason Microsoft software isn't shit is because their consulting business is basically nothing, and so they have incentive to improve the software-as-shipped. Meanwhile, IBM can confidently ship Lotus Notes because they know that if Notes sucks shit, they make more money selling consultants to fix it. I can't be the only one in the IT industry to see this, right?)

    In the process, they're basically ceding several huge hardware markets to Dell, notably cheap rack servers and cheap desktops. Their stock went down, what, 20% when this was announced? It wasn't enough-- this is a stupid decision to make a dumb company dumber, and we're (the IT industry) all going to suffer from it when five years from now we're all dealing with HP's shit.

    Edit: BTW, I don't think my order was mysteriously cancelled-- I think Barnes and Noble's shitty-ass website lost track of inventory and sold units they didn't have and weren't slated to get. The real complaint against B&N is that by the time they finally told people they didn't have stock to fulfill their orders, it was too late to get the firesale price anywhere else.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    In the process, they're basically ceding several huge hardware markets to Dell, notably cheap rack servers and cheap desktops. Their stock went down, what, 20% when this was announced? It wasn't enough-- this is a stupid decision to make a dumb company dumber, and we're (the IT industry) all going to suffer from it when five years from now we're all dealing with HP's shit.


    That precisely when my company's HQ geniuses decided to switch from Dell to HP as "our only hardware supplier"... fun.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    (BTW, how the hell is selling software and selling consulting for said software not seen, by companies, as a huge conflict-of-interest? Because it totally is! The reason Microsoft software isn't shit is because their consulting business is basically nothing, and so they have incentive to improve the software-as-shipped. Meanwhile, IBM can confidently ship Lotus Notes because they know that if Notes sucks shit, they make more money selling consultants to fix it. I can't be the only one in the IT industry to see this, right?)

    You're not the only one.  One of the factors that accelerated the decline of Novell NetWare was that Novell tried to make up their losses by consulting.  Unfortunately, they put a lot of their own vendors out of business in the process.  The rest of them simply said "Screw it, I'm selling Windows instead; Microsoft doesn't want to eat my lunch".

  • ♿ (Parody)

    I wonder if the fire sale stuff ends up running afoul of anti-dumping laws and treaties?



  • @Jaime said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    (BTW, how the hell is selling software and selling consulting for said software not seen, by companies, as a huge conflict-of-interest? Because it totally is! The reason Microsoft software isn't shit is because their consulting business is basically nothing, and so they have incentive to improve the software-as-shipped. Meanwhile, IBM can confidently ship Lotus Notes because they know that if Notes sucks shit, they make more money selling consultants to fix it. I can't be the only one in the IT industry to see this, right?)

    You're not the only one.  One of the factors that accelerated the decline of Novell NetWare was that Novell tried to make up their losses by consulting.  Unfortunately, they put a lot of their own vendors out of business in the process.  The rest of them simply said "Screw it, I'm selling Windows instead; Microsoft doesn't want to eat my lunch".

    The worst of the worst in this business was BEA (now Oracle). To become a "partner" a company had to pay thousands of dollars a year, and they would redirect to regional partners whatever business was coming to them that was worth under 1 million. But it also worked the other way... if a partner was able to get a 1-million+ project, BEA would call the customer and say that they would handle them directly, leaving the partner with (sometimes) a heartfelt "Dear valued partner" thank-you note.



    Microsoft is promoting its partners, sometimes to a fault. I've been working for a financial company that had billions of dollars in assets and wanted to bring back its outsourced data warehouse, but the IT staff was small and did not have zillions of Windows licenses so for Microsoft the company was in the small business segment - the only people that would take the call were regional partners with a very low skill set. The company ended up switching to Oracle, who took them seriously.



  • @thistooshallpass said:

    @Jaime said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    (BTW, how the hell is selling software and selling consulting for said software not seen, by companies, as a huge conflict-of-interest? Because it totally is! The reason Microsoft software isn't shit is because their consulting business is basically nothing, and so they have incentive to improve the software-as-shipped. Meanwhile, IBM can confidently ship Lotus Notes because they know that if Notes sucks shit, they make more money selling consultants to fix it. I can't be the only one in the IT industry to see this, right?)

    You're not the only one.  One of the factors that accelerated the decline of Novell NetWare was that Novell tried to make up their losses by consulting.  Unfortunately, they put a lot of their own vendors out of business in the process.  The rest of them simply said "Screw it, I'm selling Windows instead; Microsoft doesn't want to eat my lunch".

    The worst of the worst in this business was BEA (now Oracle). To become a "partner" a company had to pay thousands of dollars a year, and they would redirect to regional partners whatever business was coming to them that was worth under 1 million. But it also worked the other way... if a partner was able to get a 1-million+ project, BEA would call the customer and say that they would handle them directly, leaving the partner with (sometimes) a heartfelt "Dear valued partner" thank-you note.

     

    That sounds like the beginnings of an IT pyramid scheme.  "You pay to become a partner, and then sell consulting services to people who bought our software.  Then THEY become partners themselves..."

    Why does it seem like sociopathic business models are the norm in this industry?



  • So what "software business" is HP referring to exactly? Shitty printer drivers? Will that actually pay the bills?



  • @db2 said:

    So what "software business" is HP referring to exactly? Shitty printer drivers? Will that actually pay the bills?

    This too confuses me somewhat.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @nexekho said:

    @db2 said:
    So what "software business" is HP referring to exactly? Shitty printer drivers? Will that actually pay the bills?

    This too confuses me somewhat.

    According to teh intarwebs:

    Hewlett-Packard is planning to spin off its PC business and buy Autonomy, the second largest pure-play software company in Europe, for $10 billion, according to a report.


  • @db2 said:

    So what "software business" is HP referring to exactly? Shitty printer drivers? Will that actually pay the bills?

    HP has a great software division, mostly built from acquisitions. They are not in the consumer market, mostly they do enterprise stuff, like systems automation or ALM. They also have a big professional services division, especially since they bought EDS a few years ago.



  • @thistooshallpass said:

    @db2 said:
    So what "software business" is HP referring to exactly? Shitty printer drivers? Will that actually pay the bills?

    HP has a great software division, mostly built from acquisitions. They are not in the consumer market, mostly they do enterprise stuff, like systems automation or ALM. They also have a big professional services division, especially since they bought EDS a few years ago.

    EDS?  You mean this EDS?  Haha, I never expected to hear about them in the same sentence as the word "professional"!

     



  • @DaveK said:

    @thistooshallpass said:

    @db2 said:
    So what "software business" is HP referring to exactly? Shitty printer drivers? Will that actually pay the bills?

    HP has a great software division, mostly built from acquisitions. They are not in the consumer market, mostly they do enterprise stuff, like systems automation or ALM. They also have a big professional services division, especially since they bought EDS a few years ago.

    EDS?  You mean this EDS?  Haha, I never expected to hear about them in the same sentence as the word "professional"!

     

    In big IT companies, there are usually three customer-facing divisions: Sales (incl. pre-sales), Support and Professional Services. Usually Sales is the only division that really lives up to its name.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Obviously HP's board has obviously been infiltrated by a Dell agent.

    (BTW, how the hell is selling software and selling consulting for said software not seen, by companies, as a huge conflict-of-interest? Because it totally is! The reason Microsoft software isn't shit is because their consulting business is basically nothing, and so they have incentive to improve the software-as-shipped. Meanwhile, IBM can confidently ship Lotus Notes because they know that if Notes sucks shit, they make more money selling consultants to fix it. I can't be the only one in the IT industry to see this, right?)

    OpenText is like this. They sell you this multi-hundred thousand dollar software with the bare minimum documentation - basically how to install it and set the most common options. No best practices, no white papers, no nothing. The idea I guess is for you to bring in their super expensive consultants to also set everything up. Or expensive training classes and conferences offered by them.

    I guess it could be argued that if you need software like this, you should be able to afford having it setup how it should.


  • BINNED

    Did HP make any profits in the hardware division at all?

    If not it's an obvious choice. But if they just think they have greater margins in the software division, then why not just keep both and only expand SW?? It's not like they will suddenly get all the HW engineers to write SW.

     

    @blakeyrat said:

    Meanwhile, IBM can confidently ship Lotus Notes because they know that if Notes sucks shit, they make more money selling consultants to fix it. I can't be the only one in the IT industry to see this, right?
     

    Having experienced Lotus Notes myself, I can only imagine the horror of having to use SAP software. I've only heard rumours about that but it's practically their business model to sell customized crap. Actually, I don't dare thinking about it anymore.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @topspin said:

    Did HP make any profits in the hardware division at all?

    If not it's an obvious choice. But if they just think they have greater margins in the software division, then why not just keep both and only expand SW?? It's not like they will suddenly get all the HW engineers to write SW.

    I really don't know much about HP's financials, but it's more complicated than, "Were they making profits on HW?" Presumably, they're getting much better returns on software, and have supposedly found some additional acquisitions. They're talking about spinning off their hardware stuff, which generally means selling it, thereby raising captial. Also, their HW engineers would presumably go with the HW division. The capital they get from the spin off could fund some additional acquisitions, which is another way to grow. So, if they figure they can do a lot better with their software, it makes sense.


  •  @blakeyrat said:

    Slightly more seriously, they want to become IBM Lite, basically offer nothing but expensive and really really shitty software
    HP's current CEO came from SAP and it's obvious tha he wants to turn HP into another SAP -- one of the industry leaders in Expensive Shitty Software.@blakeyrat said:
    (BTW, how the hell is selling software and selling consulting for said software not seen, by companies, as a huge conflict-of-interest? Because it totally is! The reason Microsoft software isn't shit is because their consulting business is basically nothing, and so they have incentive to improve the software-as-shipped. Meanwhile, IBM can confidently ship Lotus Notes because they know that if Notes sucks shit, they make more money selling consultants to fix it. I can't be the only one in the IT industry to see this, right?)
    Oracle and SAP make more money from maintenance contracts than they do from selling their software.  A few months ago I came across an article where someone dug into  Oracles financials and found that overall they appear to be profitable, but in reality, every division lost money except for one -- the one that handles maintenance contracts.   I don't get it and I don't understand why business people put up with it.   Imagine going into any store and buying [any product] and being told right up front that it's such a piece of shit that you need to spend extra, a lot extra, on a "maintenance contract".

    WTF?





  • @blakeyrat said:

    In the process, they're basically ceding several huge hardware markets to Dell, notably cheap rack servers and cheap desktops.

    I don't see it.  Does anyone even buy their stuff any more?  I mean, the last HP laptop I bought was... um, this one.  Before that, I had gone about a year without buying any HP hardware.

    I mean, back in the day, I spent a lot of money on HP gear.  But, well, lately...  it's just not the same.  I mean, I've dropped my laptop and then ridden over it with my bike about three times now, and this one just keeps taking it.  One of those times was in the mud, and it got in the cooling system fairly bad.  I don't see how they can stay in business selling kit like this.  I mean, I did clean the mud out a bit, and let it dry - but this system should've been toast *months* ago.



  • @Who_the_Fuck said:

    I don't see it.  Does anyone even buy their stuff any more?  I mean, the last HP laptop I bought was... um, this one.  Before that, I had gone about a year without buying any HP hardware.

    The corporate market is something like 45% Dell, 45% HP, 10% other. The Frenchies who run my company switched us from Dell to HP, for example-- which I hate because HP laptops, for some reason, have HUGE bezels and tiny screens.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I hate because HP laptops, for some reason, have HUGE bezels and tiny screens.

    Simple solution: desktopify it.  Now, I *do* take my laptop places.  However, I have a monitor, mouse, and keyboard everywhere I'm going to give it any serious use.  It's actually been months since I actually opened it up for any reason besides cleaning it and checking for damage from my latest accident.



  • @thistooshallpass said:

    @DaveK said:

    @thistooshallpass said:

    @db2 said:
    So what "software business" is HP referring to exactly? Shitty printer drivers? Will that actually pay the bills?

    HP has a great software division, mostly built from acquisitions. They are not in the consumer market, mostly they do enterprise stuff, like systems automation or ALM. They also have a big professional services division, especially since they bought EDS a few years ago.

    EDS?  You mean this EDS?  Haha, I never expected to hear about them in the same sentence as the word "professional"!

     

    In big IT companies, there are usually three customer-facing divisions: Sales (incl. pre-sales), Support and Professional Services. Usually Sales is the only division that really lives up to its name.

    Oh great, you realize what you just done?  Because now some CxO is telling a board meeting "Well, one out of three isn't bad".  Stop giving them excuses!




  • @Who_the_Fuck said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    I hate because HP laptops, for some reason, have HUGE bezels and tiny screens.

    Simple solution: desktopify it.  Now, I *do* take my laptop places.  However, I have a monitor, mouse, and keyboard everywhere I'm going to give it any serious use.  It's actually been months since I actually opened it up for any reason besides cleaning it and checking for damage from my latest accident.

    But I already have a desktop. The laptop I have for when I'm not at my desk. I still have a pretty-new Dell, and they aren't hassling me to turn it in for an HP, so I'm still good.



  • I love my "hp pavilion dv2" laptop, which is smaller then most laptops but bigger then a netbook, so it has a normal laptop keyboard. Gets about 3 hours of 'office' work on a charge, and weights very little. It's a good carry with you laptop, and I love it. So I find it sad to see HP stopping hardware development.



  •  ironic, in my opinion some HP hardware is not too bad but it's always let down by piss poor software



  • @Helix said:

    ironic, in my opinion some HP hardware is not too bad but it's always let down by piss poor software
    In my opinion, HP hardware sucks. Except for an old deskjet printer, there hasn't been a single piece made by them that I laid my hands on and did not end up regretting it later - from my very first CD-R burner that came with a fatal design flaw (the spring that kept the laser mount in its guide rail was too weak, so even a mosquito farting would make it lose alignment, leading to a lot of - at the time, horribly expensive - coasters) to a desktop pc that my mom bought for herself (without consulting me first, and for which I now keep getting emergency calls at least once a week).

     



  • @Anonymouse said:

    @Helix said:

    ironic, in my opinion some HP hardware is not too bad but it's always let down by piss poor software
    In my opinion, HP hardware sucks. Except for an old deskjet printer, there hasn't been a single piece made by them that I laid my hands on and did not end up regretting it later
     

    You probably never laid your hands one one of their pocket calculators. They were sheer awesomeness. The HP 35 from nearly forty years ago is still alive and kicking; I'm still heavily using the HP 42S I bought 25 years ago. Neither has ever needed any maintenance except replacing batteries.

     



  • @Ilya Ehrenburg said:

    You probably never laid your hands one one of their pocket calculators. They were sheer awesomeness. The HP 35 from nearly forty years ago is still alive and kicking; I'm still heavily using the HP 42S I bought 25 years ago. Neither has ever needed any maintenance except replacing batteries.
     

    This, also they come with the bonus of using reverse polish notation so most people (at least here in the states) will only ever try and borrow it once.



  • @Anonymouse said:

    @Helix said:
    ironic, in my opinion some HP hardware is not too bad but it's always let down by piss poor software
    In my opinion, HP hardware sucks. Except for an old deskjet printer, there hasn't been a single piece made by them that I laid my hands on and did not end up regretting it later - from my very first CD-R burner that came with a fatal design flaw (the spring that kept the laser mount in its guide rail was too weak, so even a mosquito farting would make it lose alignment, leading to a lot of - at the time, horribly expensive - coasters) to a desktop pc that my mom bought for herself (without consulting me first, and for which I now keep getting emergency calls at least once a week).

    Seconded. The only laptop I've owned worse than my HP tx1000 was my 14" Apple iBook-- but the iBook had the "excuse" that it was literally defective, the HP was just poorly-designed.

    @Ilya Ehrenburg said:

    You probably never laid your hands one one of their pocket calculators. They were sheer awesomeness. The HP 35 from nearly forty years ago is still alive and kicking; I'm still heavily using the HP 42S I bought 25 years ago. Neither has ever needed any maintenance except replacing batteries.

    My TI-85 is gonna kick your HP's ass.

    Bought it in 1994, still use it 10 times a day. Works like a fucking champ.



  •  @locallunatic said:

    This, also they come with the bonus of using reverse polish notation so most people (at least here in the states) will only ever try and borrow it once.

    Heh, yes, but it works the other way round, too. Whenever I use somebody else's non-RPN calculator, it takes like ten minutes to adapt.

    @blakeyrat said:

    My TI-85 is gonna kick your HP's ass.

     Bought it in 1994, still use it 10 times a day. Works like a fucking champ.

    Good. Seems TI got their stuff together then. The TIs I met in the late 70s/early 80s all had their keys worn out within a year or two by heavy use. While they lasted, they weren't bad either.



  • @Ilya Ehrenburg said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    My TI-85 is gonna kick your HP's ass.

    Bought it in 1994, still use it 10 times a day. Works like a fucking champ.

    Good.

    No! You can't just say "good" and let it drop! There has to be pointless competition!!!

    ... sigh. Fine, whatever.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    No! You can't just say "good" and let it drop! There has to be pointless competition!!!
     

    Hmm. CLI vs. GUI needs a break, I don't play any videogames, so I'm hard pressed to find a topic. Cobra vs. Mustang? (I'd take the AC Cobra of course.)

     



  •  i was more of a casio colour graphics calc guy.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Ilya Ehrenburg said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    No! You can't just say "good" and let it drop! There has to be pointless competition!!!
     

    Hmm. CLI vs. GUI needs a break, I don't play any videogames, so I'm hard pressed to find a topic. Cobra vs. Mustang? (I'd take the AC Cobra of course.)

     

     

    Triscuits or Ritz?



  • HP's One Year Plan

     The Wall Street Journal:

    "Let's say you were given one year to kill Hewlett-Packard.  Here's how you do it: "



  • @Ilya Ehrenburg said:

    I'm hard pressed to find a topic. Cobra vs. Mustang?
     

    If this turns into a  car forum, I quit.



  • @dhromed said:

    @Ilya Ehrenburg said:

    I'm hard pressed to find a topic. Cobra vs. Mustang?
     

    If this turns into a  car forum, I quit.

     

    Well, take a look at all the different vehicles driving along the road. These are all vehicles designed with more or less the same purpose: To get you from A to B via the roads. Note the variety in designs.

    You may be thinking, car differences are really quite minor: they all have a steering wheel, foot-pedal controls, a gear stick, a handbrake, windows & doors, a petrol tank. . . If you can drive one car, you can drive any car!

    Did you not see that some people weren't driving cars, but were riding motorbikes instead. . ?

    Switching from one version of Windows to another is like switching from one car to another.But switching from Windows to Linux is like switching from a car to a motorbike.

     

     



  • @dhromed said:

    @Ilya Ehrenburg said:

    I'm hard pressed to find a topic. Cobra vs. Mustang?
     

    If this turns into a  car forum, I quit.

    Car forum? Those are animals.

    I find snakes cuter than horses, but both are deadly, so... I dunno.



  • @Spectre said:

    @dhromed said:
    @Ilya Ehrenburg said:
    I'm hard pressed to find a topic. Cobra vs. Mustang?
    If this turns into a car forum, I quit.
    Car forum? Those are animals.
    Don't be silly. The question is clearly about [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_AH-1_Cobra]helicopters[/url] vs. [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_P-51_Mustang]fighters[/url].



  • @Scarlet Manuka said:

    Don't be silly. The question is clearly about helicopters vs. fighters.
     

    Mine has a gun that shoots through tanks.

     

    The aircraft is designed to fly with one engine, one tail, one elevator and half a wing torn off.

    AWWW YEAAAA



  • @Scarlet Manuka said:

    The question is clearly about helicopters vs. fighters.
    I thought it was helicopters  vs  moose


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @El_Heffe said:

    @Scarlet Manuka said:

    The question is clearly about helicopters vs. fighters.
    I thought it was helicopters  vs  moose


    Way behind the times. Now it's helicopters vs hogs. TRWTF is that this requires passage of a law to make it legal.



  • @Scarlet Manuka said:

    Don't be silly. The question is clearly about helicopters vs. fighters.

    The only thing better than a P-51 Mustang is two P-51 Mustangs welded together:

    Something about the impending arrival of jets made prop fighter designers fucking insane. Even more insane, that monstrosity actually served in battle and has an ok record.

    It replaced the slightly-more-monstrous P-61 Black Widow:

    Yes, that thing was classified as a PURSUIT plane.


  • Garbage Person

    @dhromed said:

    The aircraft is designed to fly with one engine, one tail, one elevator and half a wing torn off.
    The "half a wing torn off" trick is due to the wings primarily just being huge shelves onto which to attach triple-dispensers for bombs. Seriously. One of those things with a full loadout is over the top pants on head insane.



  •  i just want to know when HP tanks?



  • @Helix said:

     i just want to know when HP tanks?

    I don't thnk HP ever made tanks.

     



  • @El_Heffe said:

    @Helix said:
    i just want to know when HP tanks?
    I don't thnk HP ever made tanks.
    If and when they ever do, I imagine dhromed will take great pleasure in shooting them from an A-10.



  • yesss

    (mid-video link)



  • @Helix said:

    Switching
    from one
    version of Windows to another is like switching from one car to
    another.But
    switching from
    Windows to Linux is like switching from a car to a motorbike.

     

     


    Sounds about right. It's more fun, but far less useful, and you stand the risk of crashing a lot more.



  • @dhromed said:

    yesss

    (mid-video link)

     

    A-10 looks amazing, but listening to the pilots.... thank god they can remove emotion from military command... NOT 

     


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