HP to spin off PC business to focus on enterprise software - Page 3

Except that HP wasn't really competing in the consumer space, were they? Sure, they moved a ton of units. But they weren't really giving Apple, for instance, a fight in similar spaces.

When was the last time that someone looked at an HP feature, and thought: Wow! Everyone's going to want this soon!

Meanwhile check out Dell who's quietly running a 102 degree fever over in the corner there.

Do they have 'As is' contracts for software I wonder?

Ex-SAP CEO converting HP into an SAP clone?

I suspect that Jon Rubinstein was on that Wells Fargo Stage Coach that carried an HP executive from Palo Alto to Minneapolis, to talk to a BestBuy executive.

...What I didn't realize was that Jon would be in the trunk

...Shades of Lee Marvin as Kid Shelleen in Cat Ballou

So what innovation has the unholy team of Dell, HP, Sony, Toshiba, actually accomplished over the years? Most of the "improvements" were incremental features added to existing form-factor, which includes the ill-fated, cheap, underpowered "netbooks" from the hardware side. From the production side only Dell innovated the approach to delivering computers to buyers, everyone else pretty much slowly followed suit. This isn't to say that SOME of the hardware wasn't good, that some of the features and ideas weren't cool or useful. There were some decent machines built by these companies, but not innovative in any real sense as far as consumer electronics is concerned.

The point is competition in this part of the marketplace has NOT resulted in any innovation, only a poor sort of evolving. Competitive pricing yeah, that was a benefit, except the market is clearly voting down the old paradigm of computing by not buying it - which is driving down prices faster and more effectively than the "competition" ever did.

Whether HP PC survives depends solely on its ability to innovate. At this stage of the game, it has not demonstrated the ability or desire to - so it may be too late.

Sweet!!! $100 Touchpads here we come!!!!!!

Wow, bitter much?

Dell actually provides a lot of excellent, enterprise products and services that Apple cannot touch. Some of the best servers and RAIDs I've worked with are from Dell, and their service for said products is top-notch. Trying to pigeonhole a company like Dell as simply a maker of cheap PCs is ridiculous.

One would think that RIM would be smart enough to do that but both its CEOs are boneheads with gigantic chips on their shoulders! They will rather see the company self-incinerate than admit failure.

I read this:

* HP <hpq.n>-plans to announce that it will discontinue operations for
webos devices, specifically the touchpad and webos phones
* HP <hpq.n> says will continue to explore options to optimize the value of
webos software going forward
* HP <hpq.n> says authorized the exploration of strategic alternatives for
its personal systems group
* HP - to announce its board of directors has authorized the exploration of
strategic alternatives for its personal systems group
* HP- will consider range of options that may include,among others,a full
or partial separation of psg from hp through a spin-off
* HP -will consider broad range of options that may include full or partial
separation of psg from hp

To me, that means that HP wants to Sell or license WebOS

Or one free with every $1000 purchase at BestBuy.

OK am I the only one that is going to point out that nowhere in this article does it mention a spin off? The headline probably was not written by the author, so that doesn't count. All the article says is that HP is considering strategic options for the PC division... and even that is a one-liner.

With Android under patent siege and fragmented, Dell ditching the Streak, Google alienating Samsung & HTC, WebOS out, Microsoft is quickly becoming the only alternative for Apple. Who'd ever have thought that? They certainly have a window of opportunity now. They should grow their app base like crazy. Developers! Developers! Developers!

Something else: Recall Jobs' "we're going to innovate ourselves out of a recession?". He did. And the fall out is upsetting multiple industries. What a ride...

While you are entitled to your opinion, your statement demonstrates a stunning lack of knowledge about these companies and the markets they compete in.

Dell and Apple compete in a few market segments, but increasingly they are vastly different companies, with different products, competing in different segments. A large part of Dell (and HP's) revenue comes from Enterprise solutions (Servers, Storage, & Networking) as well as Services. Apple is primarily focused on Client technologies such as PC's, Laptops, SmartPhones, and Tablets.

Please do your research before you make provocative and outright ignorant statements

WebOS totally fails in the market as intended but they want to license it to be used to run microwave ovens I bet. I see a marvelous opening for Apple to offer iOS for such things if they do. Think about it, use most successful OS and then the microwave can be part of the rest of the home's network of iPads etc, not an orphan.

Hmmm...

Maybe Google should buy HP-PSG/Palm/WebOS...

Good catch!

Interesting take. Maybe Samsung or HTC will bite. Didn't Palm also have some patent portfolio that might interest parties?

Or Apple buys it and Jon Rubinstein (ex NeXT) returns to Steve.

That would be very UNLIKE Berkshire-Hathaway. BH tends to buy companies with great prospects and lots of value. They don't very often buy bargain basement losing companies.


Maybe, but I don't believe that Best Buy has lost all leverage. After all, they still sell a TON of HP printers and ink.


But an action can involve both a spin-off and a sale, so the fact that it was a sale doesn't mean it couldn't have involved a spin-off, too. See my lengthy explanation.


Yes. Again, it is important to separate the process (spin-off) from the result. A spin-off can end up with lots of different results. That said, it is more difficult to use a spin-off to go private. You have to be careful that you're not taking equity out of the shareholders' hands and putting it in the ownership of a different entity.


Actually, the post you were responding to said that the various players have contributed innovation AND cost competitiveness. They have clearly provided the latter. I don't think anyone would have predicted 20 years ago that one could buy a very fast computer for the equivalent of $100 in 1990 dollars.

Microsoft certainly will come in second by default it seems. The old tortoise just waddled along and will be picking it's way around the dead bodies trying to catch sight of Apple.

Getting back to HP's dropping of TouchPad and Phone, this was entirely predictable when they acquired Palm. This is an acquisition I heavily criticized at the time...

Indeed. And in that sense, it's overdue.



This is among other businesses IBM left during their convulsive remake after MS essentially knifed the company that made MS a major company in the back.


If a sale rather than a spin-off, another once iconically American industry likely moving more into Asian ownership.


Jup.


It couldn't "hoit" Apple - unless a buyer (and as speculated by others and me, likely an Asian company) evolves it into something unexpectedly competitive. But the "truck business" does look to be shaking out rather more dramatically and quickly than many expected when the iPhone was released and then the iPad was thrown into (and decimated) netbook land.


I would certainly see HP hanging onto these assets for the time being - particularly the last two.

The sound of one hand clapping for its latest efforts to stay relevant with WebOS is likely a culminating (but not the original) force driving this major change in direction.

Another article notes "Apotheker has argued that HP should go more in the direction of his former employer, SAP, and focus more on services and enterprise-level software," but the move (if it happens) is more out of the playbook of another company HP's been long compared to in a number of ways, IBM, which dumped its PC ops - and that move - taken during a dark period in Armonk - has done much to help Big Blue regain its mojo, big mo and modern mission (in its second CENTURY of operation). And hasn't worked out badly for Lenovo to date.

The part of the personal computing/digital device industry dominated by HP is shrinking - first relatively and at the moment, absolutely. There were fairly high hopes WebOS could establish it as a player in the emerging consumer device markets of the future, but little of the first full 18 months of work on that has gone well at all (as, e.g., in yesterday's stories about Best Buy wanting HP to take back all the TouchPads sitting in BB warehouses even after price cuts and incentives). And probably the straw that broke......

I personally feel the TouchPad and Pre failues are more a case of failed execution on a number of fronts (e.g., the rushed roll out of the TP with slow, buggy, wanting software - which is the version that got reviewed instead of the 3.02 update which would have made a much better first impression) - rather than a fundamental flaw in WebOS, but in any case, the brand is tarnishing and looks like HP's feeling they better get out while the PC making/marketing asset still has some tangible value.

Interesting tho', that while killing WebOS devices, they're not making the software part of the property they want to dispose of.

The first time I heard of HP was back in the 1970s - they manufactured electronic testing
equipment. Bell Labs was a customer then. Have they left that business?

True that! They probably don't have the heart to flush $1.2 bil down the toilet just yet.
We live in interesting times indeed, the next phase of technology is mobility, clouds and all that. Just as there was a lot of churning with desktops the same is happening with the mobile devices.

I agree. GE should buy WebOS as their user interface for all their appliances or for GM to do the same with their cars.

I just wish they hadn't sh*t all over WEbOS before they killed it.

Seriously. They buy it from Palm, then do absolutely f*ck all with it for over a year. Then the release the same old Palm products but with "HP" on the side, then they completely give up shortly afterwards. It might as well be dipped in dung at this point.

So sad.

Oops! I found the answer a few posts down.

Nothing is lost by losing HP as a 'competitor'. Nothing.

This is good news, not bad. If HP was the strong competitor you seem to want ..... they wouldn't be in the survival mode that they seem to be in now. Competition, for competition's sake, is bad for everyone as it just dilutes the market share for all .... and companies that don't know/forget who they are ..... wind up just chasing $$$$ .... all the way to the bottom. To paraphrase my sig. .... you can focus on making money ... or focus on making satisfied customers ... but only one way works consistantly.

WebOS's core strengths are multi-tasking and web connectivity. Neither of those is actually necessary for cars and appliances. In fact multi-tasking is definitely contra-indicated for both.

HP is *NOT* killing WebOS!!! They are just spinning off the hardware side of it!! Nice misleading reporting, AI!

As embarrassing as it must be to buy Palm for $1.2 billion, launch the TouchPad, then scrap both - all in just over a year - I respect HP for making the bold move to cut their losses.

Perhaps they can sell Palm's patents and get a big chunk of that billion back.

Apple's reign will eventually end too. Steve cannot life forever.....

Given Google's backstabbing of their 'partners' in buying Moto, I think its pretty likely that Samsung, LG, HTC, or some other Android maker will pick up WebOS.
Given the need for a plan B, that makes WebOS quite valuable. They're not going to just toss it away.

There IS strong competition driving innovation and competitive pricing: Apple. (And yes, pricing is competitive; just ask Apple's competitors who are struggling to match Apple's bill of materials on computers like the MacBook Air and iPad).

This old brain is trying remember a specific example... I am sure there are some. Possibly, it was when Jimmy Ling was printing money in the 1960s, and taking over major corporations 3 time the size, splitting them into pieces, spinning off the pieces... then doing it all over again.

It may have the premium beverage company that sold itself to Quaker Oats... then reconstituted itself several years later...


But, when you think of it, we should have seen drastic action coming from HP. They have a new CEO with carte blanche -- but a limited amount of time. He just terminated a lot of problems that were not created on his watch -- but he would have owned them in a few more quarters.

Iococca, Gurstner, Elop took similar actions -- as did one Steve Jobs.

And they would keep WebOS without hardware to put it on... because?

This is why you shouldnt buy HP products... They put something out then let it die quickly. I gave up on them years ago.

My point was that iOS would be even better for that. At least it would be the main stream mobile OS and would integrate.