HP Inc to blast more humans from employment cannon HP Inc - not wanting to be entirely out done by the other half of the business that it split from - is to toss up to another 4,000 workers onto the employment bonfire, and the ailing PC and printer market is to blame. Confirmation of the “approved restructuring plan” was outlined last night in an SEC filing, it will be …
Looking at all the companies cutting jobs it seems to me much of the tech sector is heading for a recession. In addition you have people like Meg Whitman referring to the US as the "high cost geography", Are we seeing the end of tech opportunity in the US and Europe?
Right now with the weaker pound reducing the cost of labor in Britain Brexit may be the best thing to happen to Britain in quite some time.
Get real. Has there really been a major innovation in printing in the last 5 years? The last 10? When a printer manufacturer says "R&D," they are really talking about putting an extra kink in the cartridge package so that a new patent can be obtained, or tweaking the firmware in a cartridge to prevent refilling. Almost all of the "innovations" in printing involve locking down the system and forcing marks (er, customers) to pay exorbitant fees for ink.
It's all to do with the investors, who demand two things - beating your EPS guidance and growing revenue, every quarter. Revenue growth can lead to a higher share price and higher dividends so they make more money on their investment.
Actually HP Inc is fairly profitable, and made $783m NET profit in the last quarter. Sadly it is no longer sufficient merely to be profitable...
Well, Windows 10 is a good enough reason not to buy a new PC and soldier on with a PC running an older version of Windows.
As for the printer side of things, it's HP's own fault for churning out garbage consumer grade printers and 'all-in-ones' for the past few years and pissing off many formerly loyal customers.
A quote the CEO of Siemens made when he was referring to the US as a whole in the aftermath of the 2008 Financial crisis is very applicable to hi tech and in particular HP (and HPE): "they would be better off if they put less effort into financial re-engineering and more effort into real engineering".
A good chunk of HP's problem is that they haven't come up with a blockbuster product in a while now, and they're in collective denial that the problem with Windows has anything to do with them ... even though it's the key driver for user experience on their main product.
As for all hi tech's highly leveraged takeovers (Dell), de-mergers (HP), acquisitions (Lenovo), and lay-offs ... their current predicaments speaks to the success of their finance spreadsheet jockies & retention bonuses for their senior management.
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