HP's Shift On PCs Could Boost Acer, Dell and Lenovo 156
CWmike writes "With HP spinning off its PC business, rivals will be looking for a way to get a bigger piece of the hardware pie. HP's PC unit news, among other industry-rattling announcements, including pulling out of the tablet market and shuttering webOS, rocked the hardware industry since HP is by far the dominant maker in the world. So while HP decides what to do, rivals should be plotting their next move, say industry analysts. Who could benefit the most from any change-up in PC sales? The obvious suspects: Dell, which passed Acer in the second quarter of this year; and Acer is looking to make up some lost ground and could see HP's shake up as an opportunity. And don't forget Lenovo, which holds the third-largest market share. Despite the general downshift for PCs, Lenovo is riding some great momentum right now, reports Gartner. In the second quarter of 2011, the company saw 22.5% growth in its PC shipments."
A related article ponders the fate of webOS, looking at a number of potential buyers as well as the unlikely possibility that HP will open source it.
Intel and AMD will wind up making their own PCs (Score:2)
I guess that is where the market is headed now. And there will be no need for systems integrators.
Uh huh. (Score:2)
Enlighten us more, oh wise seer of truth.
Already open sourced (Score:2)
WebOS, like Android, runs atop the linux kernel. You can download the source, plus the patches, from the palm website [palm.com].
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There is also Apple WebKit, but it is also already open source. What is left over then is carrier stuff and a handful of Web apps.
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No, the patches to allow the linux kernel to run on a phone, for example, are of value - they're also available for download, as are all the other patches.
As far as the WebOS UI - UIs come, UIs go, and for many people a gesture-based interface doesn't work on a desktop (which is where HP wanted to extend it). Gesture-based interfaces that don't have non-gesture alternatives for all actions also violate both access
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PC manufacturers, now who are your talking about, surely not the system badgers, the only thing they design being, the badges on the outside of computers. Could you be possibly talking about the ODM, joking called other devices manufacturers, those companies that actually manufacture PCs but whom the public relations bull shit caimpagn try to make invisible in order to trade on the prior trust built by one was computer manufacturers before they got taken over by off shoring shit heads (there just ain't no
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I guess that is where the market is headed now. And there will be no need for systems integrators.
Why? It's not their core business. There is a world of difference at being good at making chips and being good at making chips and whole systems.
Agree (Score:2)
As someone subjected to a server that was entirely Intel's design, I agree 1000% percent.
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I didn't have many complaints with their X series. Especially when we could update the processor board from a 486 DX50 to a Pentium 60. Woot! 32MB RAM!
They went 24x7 for 5 years. Not a hiccup. Then came the Cubix chassis, and from there it was downhill into Windows NT server and Compaq.
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Close... But I'd say companies like TigerDirect, Newegg, Amazon, Fry's, Tech4Less, etc. will actually start building to order. They've already got the cases, motherboards, etc. in stock... Assembling a PC really isn't the hardest job either. The parts manufacturers have done a good job of idiot-proofing that. Most of the internals can't be any worse than what the typical "PC maker" offers anyways. When it comes to boards Foxconn, Gigabyte, ASUS, etc. are pretty much what's on the inside in any case.
Hopefull
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I have a bespoke box from a relatively obscure web vendor. I have had no reason to disparage it.
My Apple machines are another matter though.
Also have a Compaq that's been a real trooper oddly enough.
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systemax is part of TigerDirect
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Intel already makes PCs ... (Score:2)
Doomed... Not in a good way (Score:2)
Re:Doomed... Not in a good way (Score:5, Informative)
If they sell of their computer business what do they think they can sell?
"Personal computer business" != "computer business". Their Q3 2011 financial review [corporate-ir.net] indicates that, in earnings from operations in the quarter ending July 31, 2011, the rest of the computer business - "Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking" - was third, after the services business and the printer/scanner business, and ahead of the PC business.
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Re:Doomed... Not in a good way (Score:5, Informative)
That explains why IBM is out of business, unless you think that servers and POS are carrying all the load.
Right... but for the last few years HP has claimed it's competing with IBM Global Services, but I don't see much real evidence of that. And I don't see HP making a lot of software either... IBM has the DB2 and WebSphere product lines (sales of which are driven by their Global Services contracts). I don't know if IBM's hardware outsells HP's, but they have a lot of products available there, too, and they cost money.
But then again, although I have two consumer-market HP PCs here in my office, I'd categorize the tower as "average to meh" and the laptop is pretty much junk. I'd love to see HP clear some space in the retail channel if it means someone who actually knows how to make a decent PC takes their place.
Re:Doomed... Not in a good way (Score:4, Funny)
Companies that don't make anything, can't sell anything, and can't make any money.
Tell that to Wall Street.
Carley really fucked them (Score:2, Insightful)
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Yeah, but the fuckups have long-term effects. Short term profit, long term loss.
Or Apple (Score:2)
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I'm sure Apple can hardly wait to get the business of all 15 people who bought a WebOS device.
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I recommend Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Pay particular attention to the part where Mycroft is taught the difference between "funny" and "funny only once".
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I'm sure Apple can hardly wait to get the business of all 15 people who bought a WebOS device.
They already did. Most of them probably bought iPads when they returned their HP tablets.
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The first "rivals" hotlink didn't even mention Apple. And the "downshift" link mentioned only the iPad. But I'm guessing, Apple might get a bigger piece of the pie too.
Apple have limited themselves to selling hardware that runs their software. When they start making servers and pc's that natively run linux and windows then they can have a bigger piece of the pie.
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That would be right now then. You can natively run Linux and Windows on any current Mac sold since 2005 or so.
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You didn't say anything about the cost (and 3x the cost, come on, 1995 called and wants its myth back), you said (and I quote) "When they start making servers and pc's that natively run linux and windows then they can have a bigger piece of the pie."
So, that's right now then. Now you are trying to dig your way out of an ignorant post by trying to retcon in some nonsense about the price.
Yes, you pay a premium for Apple hardware, but that was not the argument at all.
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You care enough to keep replying. So clearly, quite a bit. You're just sore that you got called on a nonsense argument.
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So, you picked the "ultra micro portable" vs an 11" laptop - now try speccing it against a Macbook Pro, or find something equivalent to the Air.
You're not comparing equivalent systems - for one thing, the SSD makes a huge difference in the price, as does the form factor of the Air.
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I dislike Apple as much as the next guy, but be reasonable here - the Macbook Air is expensive because it is ultra light weight unlike the Dell. A Samsung that comes close to the specs of the Macbook is NP900X3A at $1650 and it is half the hard drive and a weaker processor. Take a look at the 3 lb models from others and the Macbook is probably in the upper middle price range ($1400, $1650, $1600, $1950 were the prices for such a laptop with even a $128 SSD on TigerDirect).
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You are being so disingenuous, it is ridiculous. The fact that you have to be so disingenuous to pretend Dell is cheaper than Apple tells the whole story. Comparing a big fat notebook that most women cannot even carry day-in and day-out to the smallest i5 PC on the planet, with no moving parts, which can get lost in a purse, is just totally disingenuous. Plus you used the Dell base model but not the Apple base model. There is a MacBook Air that is 60% of the price of the one you chose.
The fact is, if you bu
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Apple is 3x the price? You mean I can get an i5 ultralight with Thunderbolt, SSD, backlit keyboard, multitouch trackpad, made entirely from one block of aluminum for rigidity despite being only millimeters thin, for only $333 from a non-Apple vendor? Who would that be?
There are plenty of Windows users, even many developers, even people inside Microsoft, who use Apple hardware. If you want high-end hardware, the Mac is by far the cheapest and best. If you want a notebook that doesn't suck, the Mac is the onl
Apple does Windows ... (Score:2)
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So? It still remains a relatively hostile environment for other operating systems (boot loader, partition format).
Whereas I can just take the Apple parts list, avoid using unnecessarily expensive laptop parts, and put them in a much more expandable chassis or even get something that's meant to be rack mounted.
Or I could just get the cheapest thing I can and forget about the Apple parts list if it's not really needed.
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The bootloader is EFI. Used in every modern PC. The partition is GPT, required in modern PCs these days.
Yes, most BIOSes these days comprise of an EFI loader, with BIOS backwards compatibility. Oh wait, Windows requires that to start up on the Macs as well. Hell, Ubuntu installs trivially on a Mac.
And GPT is required these days. MBR won't cut it unless you want to stick with drives 2TB and small
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The boot loader and partition format on Macs is Intel EFI and GUID. Not exotic at all. They also provide a BIOS emulator for legacy operating systems called Boot Camp.
The MacBook Air has Thunderbolt, so even though it is the smallest i5 system, it is an expandable chassis.
Apple doesn't sell home brew parts or systems. The fact that you can build a home brew system with fewer features than an Apple system and no portability is not surprising, but it is irrelevant.
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The first "rivals" hotlink didn't even mention Apple. And the "downshift" link mentioned only the iPad. But I'm guessing, Apple might get a bigger piece of the pie too.
Apple have limited themselves to selling hardware that runs their software. When they start making servers and pc's that natively run linux and windows then they can have a bigger piece of the pie.
As someone who have run the PowerPC flavors of Linux and several BSDs on Macs since long before they did the processor switch, I have to say that there is just so many ways in which your post is just wrong. And when it comes to new hardware I have no objection on their ability to run it "native", in fact I'm running Linux native on my MacBook Pro. I have no need for Windows but I can tell you that it works just as well.
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Margins are small and competition is fierce, apple rules supreme on the tablet front, but that part of HP's business is even tinier, hence why would the link bother to mention apple?
Because HP says [wsj.com] the fact people are increasingly ditching PC's for tablets (read: iPads) factored in their decision :
"The tablet effect is real, and sales of the TouchPad are not meeting our expectations," Apotheker says, explaining the movement of consumers from PCs to tablets as one of the problems with the PC division. So H-P is exploring options for its unit that "may include separation through spinoff or other transactions."
Basically they're saying iPads are where the money and future growth are and th
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Because HP says [wsj.com] the fact people are increasingly ditching PC's for tablets (read: iPads) factored in their decision :
"The tablet effect is real, and sales of the TouchPad are not meeting our expectations," Apotheker says, explaining the movement of consumers from PCs to tablets as one of the problems with the PC division. So H-P is exploring options for its unit that "may include separation through spinoff or other transactions."
Basically they're saying iPads are where the money and future growth are and they failed to create even a beachhead in that market so they're getting out.
That seems like a very shortsighted move because HP only acquired Palm last year and has only had a competitor to the iPad on the market for a month and a half. To kill your largest division because your 1st generation tablet didn't make an immediate splash against a product from a company that has a cult-like following tells me that HP's management isn't willing to work to develop a product that they purchased just to enter this market, and they deserve to fail as a result.
Also, Dell and Lenovo may take HP's share of the corporate workstation market and Acer the low-to-mid range laptop but Apple will probably take a healthy bite out of the more profitable high end laptop share (what HP had left of it) and high end PC. The volume isn't really important, the fact that there isn't any money left in being top dog volume-wise is the whole reason they are getting out.
While there isn't a lot of profi
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HP's PC's are only 1/3rd of their revenue, and they only get a 5% margin on that, and they have to ship an incredible number of systems just to make that. They could put that same money in T-bills and get 3% for couch sitting, right? They could buy Apple stock and get 10%, 20% return.
Microsoft takes the bulk of the profit from each PC sale. The game is up, though. Apotheker knows HP PSG is being played by Microsoft, because he is a software guy. So let Microsoft buy PSG and tie up that much revenue making W
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Apple just became the #1 PC vendor by volume last quarter, shipping 4 million more systems than HP. They are also by far the most profitable PC maker, and they have grown faster than all the other PC vendors for more than 5 years now. Apotheker specifically said part of the reason for shuttering HP PSG is that they cannot compete with Apple. How that is "not sitting at the table" is beyond me.
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Apple were already getting a piece of HP's PC business before they decided to sell it, so I think it is assumed that will only continue. Apple just became the largest PC vendor in the world by volume, shipping about 4 million more systems last quarter than HP. Those new Apple sales came mostly out of HP since it is the next biggest vendor.
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Sucks (Score:1)
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That is really sad, I was eager to get a ProBook. Business grade hardware from HP was almost always really good, I'm sad to see it go.
HP make great high end workstations and great servers. Their laptops are not so good. The build quality on any probook I've seen are not up to lenovo's standards although I'll admit HP laptops look prettier.
Spin it off, call it Compaq (Score:3)
That is really sad, I was eager to get a ProBook. Business grade hardware from HP was almost always really good, I'm sad to see it go.
Maybe they will spin it off and call it Compaq, and little will change other than the name plate. OK, I admit it, that was a little optimistic.
This sucks (Score:2)
HP makes very good servers and high end PCs. So where am I meant to buy good servers from now? They spin this off the quality will nose-dive.
Acer make junk, Dell servers lack HP's quality and the hardware changes every 5 minutes, Lenovo don't make servers at all.
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servers are not PC's, simple isn't it
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servers are not PC's, simple isn't it
Actually tell that to my last employer who brought a few hundred HP workstations, rack mounted them, and used them as servers. It was the cheapest way to buy good quality and high spec hardware at the time.
It's slashdot, I didn't actually read the article. Nice to know I'll still be able to buy decent servers.
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HP makes very good servers and high end PCs. So where am I meant to buy good servers from now? They spin this off the quality will nose-dive.
Acer make junk, Dell servers lack HP's quality and the hardware changes every 5 minutes, Lenovo don't make servers at all.
Seems I'm wrong about Lenovo, they do actually make servers. Their top end is very much lower spec than HPs current top end though.
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Dell servers lack HP's quality
Apparently you are wrong about a lot of things. I've used plenty of dell servers and they are well designed and incredibly reliable.
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IBM and Cisco are still very much there in the x86 server space. So is HP for that matter.
you're expected to by ARM systems instead (Score:2)
ahh, but aren't we supposed to be all buying ARM 64-bit systems right now, in order to save power in those data centres, ehn? like the phytec module using the spear1310 where you can get 8 Dual-Core Cortex A9s with 1gb ECC DDR3 RAM on each, and 8 SATA drives (one each) which are the major power drain in the 19in 1U rack-mounted server? http://www.phytec.com/news/ZT-Systems-R1801e-Server.html [phytec.com]
Re:This sucks (Score:4, Interesting)
They're not spinning off the server, networking and storage business.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL7yD-0pqZg
Sorry but that mentality is what popped up. HP seemed like the last of the companies which really engineered their hardware.
So I guess the this really is the post-PC era and HP knows this too. DId you notice nobody in the press wants to even mention this as to why HP is jumping ship?
LoB
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Apotheker himself said it, and it is in many articles. But I guess by "press" maybe you mean PC-oriented press? I could see why PC Mag would downplay that.
Anyway, he was very clear that he is going to compete with Oracle and IBM, and not compete with Apple.
The thing is, most users right now want either a $499 iPad or a $999 MacBook Air, and only Apple makes those. There is not even a clone that is close. This hasn't happened before because Apple never had a low-end PC before, and Apple's form factors used t
Boo HP! yay Lenovo! (Score:1)
No shit captain obvious (Score:5, Funny)
I certainly would have never figured out that the largest PC maker leaving the market would benefit its competition
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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It is their largest segment of their business. The market punished them today for it. It just isnt growing as fast as other segments. They want to say 'oh yeah 10% growth yoy' They have been following the market for many things instead of leading the way.
Instead of reinventing what they make they just threw the largest segment of their business overboard.
When IBM did it, it was not exactly a huge segment of their business at that point.
They are betting on someone else's company saving them. Hence the 1
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HP PSG is only 33% of HP revenue and only generates a 5% margin. It is like a charity they run on behalf of Microsoft. Put that money in treasury bills and focus on better business opportunities and you are better off. Apotheker said "we have a lot of better ways of using that capital."
The Windows PC has already been "margin driven into the ground." That is why HP wants out. That is why Apple systems are at least a generation ahead at everything. Notebooks just got PCI-Express and it is Mac-only!
When notebo
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Excellent rant, sir! But may I suggest that you forgot: "And anyone who disagrees with that is clearly a moron."
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That is BS. HP is not obligated to assemble millions of computers for Microsoft for a 5% return on investment like some kind of charity. If there is some duty to keep HP PSG alive, then let that duty fall on Microsoft, who are the only one who can turn a good profit on a Windows PC. Windows should move from coming on DVD to coming on flash storage inside an already functioning PC.
Apotheker is like, "I can get 5% return just by putting this money in the bank!"
And if people need reliable client computer syste
Re:I'm impressed. (Score:4, Insightful)
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and the cell phone carriers are more evil (Score:2)
With there 1-2+ year locks in and they reset when you get a new phone.
Forced Voice plans at $5+ per line or $25+ on there own
Forced Data plans at $20-$30 per Device for at most 5GB with more data being $10 per GB
NO Data Plan pools
Software lock in
App store lock in
forced carrier software on the phone
HP hardware business.... (Score:2)
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Most likely HP would do what IBM did and spin it off/sell it.
HP obviously sees no future in the commodity PC market so it would make sense for them to get out of it and let someone else take it over.
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They should call one company H and the other: P.
Compaq would be best, for the nostalgia factor. Use the old logo, too. Only grandpas are buying Windows PC's anyway, so give them a taste of the good old days.
Interesting scenario (Score:5, Interesting)
In the tech industry, there is a lot to see here of interest.
First, notably, a lot of the financial commentators are praising the dump of PSG because of the relatively weak ~5% margin. It is clear that a lot of the vocal members of that circle tear into the numbers piece by piece without consideration of how it relates to the whole. For example, dumping PSG means a lot of big contracts (like the NASA deal they were touting so heavily not so long ago) are going to be at high risk for cancellation. That means not only are they losing the PC piece of that pie, it means they are forfeiting some amount of server sales. The ability to sell all a company's IT needs from datacenter to desktop was actually a non-trivial advantage over IBM for a lot of procurement situations, this means they will forfeit that advantage going forward and lose server sales. There is also the reputation damage associated with companies that bet their business on the consistency of HP to potentially lose the bet. This last part will depend heavily upon how they handle existing contracts and make things right. Another consequence is on HP buying components. When you ship a whole lot of PCs, component vendors will be aggressive on margin and make it up in volume. If you are ordering only parts for servers, expect a hit to server base material cost due to lower purchase volumes. This applies to common components, but more critically distinct components sourced from the same suppliers even if they wouldn't fit in a laptop.
The whole palm acquisition handling demonstrated a complete lack of strategic direction, regardless of your opinion of WebOS. Either there was no market opportunity in the first place, meaning HP bet a couple billion based on poor marketing skills, Palm's team was a lost cause from the start, which HP should have figured out before the 1.2 billion dollar check, whatever capability was there was destroyed by HP mismanagement, or it would've worked but they canned it before even really trying. Of course, it's a combination of all of the above, but I do recall a mass exodus of nearly every single 'visionary' person who could take credit for the features about WebOS that garnered any praise, meaning HP either booted them out or at least failed to retain them, which reeks of mismanagement. Launching after the iPad2 at price parity with 0 mind share was absolutely insane.
Another thought I have is around their declared intent to move to software and services instead of PC industry. A lot of people describe this as IBM like, but IBM was *very* firmly entrenched in the software industry before they exited. HP is not nearly so robust in the software industry, and while they may be making moves in the name of getting there, they should be hedging their bets before betting those efforts will bear fruit. I do wonder if the Apotheker leadership is a bit biased from his SAP experience and assuming the answer to any company regardless of current positioning just just become a software development company. I wouldn't be surprised to see the guy handed CEO of McDonald's and tell them to shutter their fast food business and start coding.
In general, they lost 20% of their company value because 1 year ago, they said 'we want to be just like apple' and threw billions at the problem to say in only one year "we want to be nothing at all like apple". They've been showing more and more shortsightedness in their spending in the last couple of years, spending on the magnitude that demands long-term engagement and then changing their minds on short-term timescales.
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> The ability to sell all a company's IT needs from datacenter to desktop was
> actually a non-trivial advantage over IBM for a lot of procurement situations,
> this means they will forfeit that advantage going forward and lose server sales.
As long as the master vendor takes ownership of the commodity product (specs, warranty, service, etc) does it matter what the name is on the box? Historically IBM would (re)sell you almost anything except Amdahl, and I have purchased plenty of non-IBM stuff from
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IBM also makes really bad software. I'd say HP could start a profitable business by making better quality software. Then again ..... its HP.
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After a lot of time in the 'enterprise' space, I'm about convinced they have a requirement of 'software must be crappy' before they'll ever consider buying it. Show them a straightforward, robust piece of software that can be managed by one or two people and a massive mess of software that requires a matrix-managed team of operators from a few dozen departments... They'll go for the latter almost every time.
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The desktop to datacenter thing is obsolete. Today, you want mobile to data center. People don't want huge, complicated, power hungry, high maintenance needing, high software license fee HP PC's as clients. They want iPads, they want iPhones, they want ultralights like MacBook Air. HP did not learn to build those kinds of clients, so they cannot offer an all-HP solution. So they are a server company.
Even Apple's tiny Mac mini is often used as a server today. The clients are wireless. Servers are separated f
Just a Label (Score:2)
HP/UX True64 (Score:3)
No mention of the fate of HP/UX or True64.
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Have you seen either in retail stores? Then they're completely unaffected. IBM spun-off its retail PC business, too, yet AIX remains alive.
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I haven't seen a copy of webOS on the shelf either. Tran has OS/2, CP/M (pcdos), and AIX on the shelf.
http://www.trancompservice.com/ [trancompservice.com]
now I'm not generally one for conspiracy theories (Score:2)
...but I have a sneaky suspicion there's more to it than this. Yes, Apotheker is a CEO, and as much as we all like to look condescendingly upon those in upper management as being out of touch, HP has been trading Dell for the #1 and #2 slots as far as PC shipment numbers for the past decade. I find it seriously difficult to believe that the board, the shareholders, or even the 'yes men' will say "dump the second most profitable division of our company, excellent idea, sir!".
Yes, you can dismiss my crystal b
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HP PSG only has 5% margins. That is only slightly more profitable than Treasury bills. Apotheker said, "we have better ways of using that capital." Making PC's for Microsoft is not a good business and never has been. It is refreshing to hear someone at HP talk who is not a Microsoft-brainwashed zombie.
Apple just became the #1 PC vendor by volume last quarter. They shipped 4 million more systems than HP.
> but I'd dare say that there has to be more to this story than simply a change of heart
> whereby th
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Same here. HP provides our servers, printers, desktops and laptops. And an HP support contract for all that. Eliminating PCs is taking a leg off the stool. Our office will probably shift back to Dell would be my guess.
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Okay, so who apart from HP sells netbooks with matte-finish screens and Linux?
Lenovo does, for their business-oriented models. I don't know about Linux, but they'll sell you systems with just DOS loaded, at a modest discount.
Open Source Portions of WebOS (Score:2)
Not sure if enough information is present to load Ubuntu onto an HP TouchPad.