Oh, I don't know... Seems to me their alternative is death. Maybe this will help them focus on opportunities with more urgency.
How does splitting the company up allow focus? All this means is upper management spent all their time screwing and milking each division instead of allowing those who understood each division to do the work to make each division successful. And, Whitman's spreadsheet got too big.
She says that they're splitting it so each company can grow better but she says they can align rewards and results i.e pass blame when one segment does badly. She picked the enterprise company to be CEO of and left the PC part to someone else.
Re/code says that HP tried and failed to sell off large parts of the company:
"HP approached both Lenovo and Dell about the possible sale of its $32 billion (2013 sales) PC operation. In both cases it was rebuffed."
but it looks like they tried to ditch a large chunk of their enterprise part too:
"In another case, HP approached two India-based companies, Wipro and Infosys about the possible sale of its $28 billion IT services unit, known as Enterprise Services. Again it was rebuffed."
"In a third case, it approached IBM about the sales of its $1.2 billion Business Critical Server business, but was turned down."
"HP also recently explored a strategic merger with data storage company EMC that would have created a $130 billion technology giant. In contemplating that proposed merger, HP was interested most in VMWare, the cloud software company which EMC controls.
The merger talks failed mainly because EMC wanted a higher valuation than HP was willing to pay. One other reason the talks may have failed was that HP and EMC viewed the declining PC and printer divisions as a drag on the combined operations, sources say. A split into two companies might set up a scenario down the road where HP and EMC re-open those merger talks combining the enterprise company with EMC."
Their PC business is terrible, they are operating with under 3% margins - on $32b, they made $949m income. It's not worth the effort. The printer business made $3.9b on $23.8b revenue. Enterprise made $4.3b on $28b revenue. Whitman is clearly aligning herself with the most profitable segment in being CEO of the enterprise part.
Samsung is out of the PC market in Europe, I expect it won't be long before HP winds down their PC segment to focus on printers although that might depend on if many people bought an HP printer with their HP computer as a bundle.
I wonder what will cost more: a share of HP Inc. or a cartridge of HP Ink.
very good, caught me by surprise.
Re HP, not nearly as surprising, though a very cowardly move from Meg Whitman. Mark Hurd must be spinning in his (high paying, probably much more comfortable, I doubt he gives a shit really, Oracle gig) grave.
The EMC deal would be one to watch. It didn't click that they own VMWare, the VM software for running Windows on the Mac without Bootcamp and also allows you to run OS X in a VM under OS X:
There would be no harm in it existing without EMC as long as it can sustain itself but HP buying them could change the plans. There's always Parallels if they canned VMWare Fusion but VMWare is nice.
How does splitting the company up allow focus? All this means is upper management spent all their time screwing and milking each division instead of allowing those who understood each division to do the work to make each division successful. And, Whitman's spreadsheet got too big.
And what, exactly, do you think they should've done? Nothing? They'd be gone in several years unless they do something radically different.
Comments
Oh, I don't know... Seems to me their alternative is death. Maybe this will help them focus on opportunities with more urgency.
How does splitting the company up allow focus? All this means is upper management spent all their time screwing and milking each division instead of allowing those who understood each division to do the work to make each division successful. And, Whitman's spreadsheet got too big.
[VIDEO]
She says that they're splitting it so each company can grow better but she says they can align rewards and results i.e pass blame when one segment does badly. She picked the enterprise company to be CEO of and left the PC part to someone else.
Re/code says that HP tried and failed to sell off large parts of the company:
http://recode.net/2014/10/05/hp-returns-to-breakup-plan-it-shelved-three-years-ago/
They wanted to ditch the PC market entirely:
"HP approached both Lenovo and Dell about the possible sale of its $32 billion (2013 sales) PC operation. In both cases it was rebuffed."
but it looks like they tried to ditch a large chunk of their enterprise part too:
"In another case, HP approached two India-based companies, Wipro and Infosys about the possible sale of its $28 billion IT services unit, known as Enterprise Services. Again it was rebuffed."
"In a third case, it approached IBM about the sales of its $1.2 billion Business Critical Server business, but was turned down."
They tried to buy EMC ( http://uk.emc.com/index.htm ):
"HP also recently explored a strategic merger with data storage company EMC that would have created a $130 billion technology giant. In contemplating that proposed merger, HP was interested most in VMWare, the cloud software company which EMC controls.
The merger talks failed mainly because EMC wanted a higher valuation than HP was willing to pay. One other reason the talks may have failed was that HP and EMC viewed the declining PC and printer divisions as a drag on the combined operations, sources say. A split into two companies might set up a scenario down the road where HP and EMC re-open those merger talks combining the enterprise company with EMC."
Their PC business is terrible, they are operating with under 3% margins - on $32b, they made $949m income. It's not worth the effort. The printer business made $3.9b on $23.8b revenue. Enterprise made $4.3b on $28b revenue. Whitman is clearly aligning herself with the most profitable segment in being CEO of the enterprise part.
Samsung is out of the PC market in Europe, I expect it won't be long before HP winds down their PC segment to focus on printers although that might depend on if many people bought an HP printer with their HP computer as a bundle.
Re HP, not nearly as surprising, though a very cowardly move from Meg Whitman. Mark Hurd must be spinning in his (high paying, probably much more comfortable, I doubt he gives a shit really, Oracle gig) grave.
http://www.zdnet.com/investors-said-to-want-emc-to-spin-off-vmware-7000031827/
There would be no harm in it existing without EMC as long as it can sustain itself but HP buying them could change the plans. There's always Parallels if they canned VMWare Fusion but VMWare is nice.
EMC recently hired Zane Rowe:
http://www.zdnet.com/emc-nabs-apple-vet-as-new-chief-financial-officer-7000034268/
He was VP of North American sales for Apple from 2012 until May this year.
How does splitting the company up allow focus? All this means is upper management spent all their time screwing and milking each division instead of allowing those who understood each division to do the work to make each division successful. And, Whitman's spreadsheet got too big.
And what, exactly, do you think they should've done? Nothing? They'd be gone in several years unless they do something radically different.
They fucked up, they had a good os with WebOS. They should've kept developing.
Here we are, years later, and we are STILL seeing the effects of how badly Carly Fiorina screwed up this once-great company.