It's What You Don't See
The reporting here may be factually accurate, but it misses out on the essence of what has been happening at HP over the last 10-15 years. By the time that the company became established, the political in-fighting and internal scraps had become more important than customers to those who ran the company. There were a few moments of insight into this when we learned about the spying, the monitoring of journalists and the board-room antics a few years ago.
But the scary thing here - at least, if you are an HP shareholder - is the way that the company throws away market-leading technology. For example, 5 years ago they had a range of large-format photo-quality printers (A3+ and up) that were the best that money could buy. HP have quit that segment and are no longer producing that technology... The trail of wreckage is much longer, but if you've used the technology and/or worked closely with the company, you will know that it wasn't their R&D, or Product Development - they had cutting-edge technology - it was the in-fighting that held them back.
Then, of course, they got on the profit-at-any-cost bandwagon, threw away their morals, and here we are. So today you can go to Amazon in the UK and buy an HP OfficeJet Pro 8100 printer [A4, duplexer, good page rate] for £69. It has discrete ink cartridges - four of them - which if purchased as a set of 4 costs £75 - more in fact than a printer that comes with ink to start with... HP pull their profit from consumers by charging well in excess of £4000 [over £4700, in fact] for a gallon of ink...
The latest announcements may be a dangerous reflection of that profiteering mind-set. By splitting the company as described, Whitman seems to be indicating that she sees the enterprise business as being a potential drag/drain on the product side. Of course, with the profit margins that you can get from charging £4000 for a gallon of ink, you can see how the consumer/product side might appear lucrative...
The interesting/sad thing is that through these games HP appear to have lost one of their most important constituent parts - the one that produced cutting edge, premium quality technology [for a price] that helped drive innovation forwards.
Building cheap consumer tat for the lowest possible price [and then selling a replacement when it breaks] is a race to the bottom, and always has been... [ Sadly, there are prizes for all races, which is why it's still attracting players].
Biting the hand that feeds IT
