back to article HP finally decides the future of the PC: It's a printer accessory

HP has confirmed the rumours anent the future of its Personal Systems Group - the globocorp's PC-making arm, which at one point seemed likely to be sold off - by announcing that it will merge with the company's printer tentacle. According to a corporate announcement issued today: HP’s Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) and its …

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  1. Tom Chiverton 1
    FAIL

    For that they crapped on the corpse of Palm and killed the Touchpad ?

    Ejits.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It was already dead Jim.

    2. Thomas 4

      They haven't killed the Touchpad

      After all, HP is TOTALLY COMMITED to the future of WebOS.

      1. P. Lee
        Meh

        Re: They haven't killed the Touchpad

        The Enyo/Onyx gui widgets are great and available to a webkit browser near you.

        The HP tablet was never going to survive MS entering the tablet market, any more than a Dell non-ms tablet would.

  2. Audrey S. Thackeray

    Anent

    Not a word I had encountered before. Thanks.

  3. JeevesMkII
    Trollface

    "Blah blah blah" said Meg Whitman, "blah blah da-blahdy blah."

    Is that kind of vapid mangerspeak something you learn in the best MBA programmes? It's astonishing how someone could vocalise so much while saying so little.

    I think what she meant to say was "We decided to merge our loss-making parts with the bits that make money so that the accumulated dolts will drag down our productive members of staff. It's this kind of bold leadership that justifies my million dollar bonuses."

  4. SuperFrog
    Paris Hilton

    Will someone at HP please grow up?

    1. Mr Nobody 1
      Thumb Down

      Grow up ?

      Same could be said for a number of the posters on here.

  5. Bill Neal
    Thumb Up

    Quality Control?

    Perhaps their PCs would turn a profit if people had some reason to hope those PCs would last anywhere near as long as the HP Printers. The quality of their servers & printers really makes it seem like they are made by a different company. Maybe the PC tentacle will learn a thing or two

    1. Azzy

      Re: Quality Control?

      Seriously!

      This is why HP's PC division is in the toilet, or one of them anyway - they make garbage PCs with an abysmal reliability record.

      If HP built computers that were as reliable as their printers, they'd be doing a lot better. Actually, for that matter, maybe they could pick up the styling used on HP's printers too - white/light grey, no frills styling, sturdy build, and reliability. It would help mark a clean break with the unreliable crap of HP laptops past, and the styling would evoke thoughts of HP's reliable printers, rather than of low-quality PCs (which is what HP's computers are, and look like).

      Also - selling off the PC division? Who the hell would want to buy it? That's probably why they're doing this instead - they couldn't find a mark to unload it on.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Quality Control?

        Well they *used* to know how to make reliable PCs (before the Compaq merger, that is). Weird PCs, I must admit, but reliable....

        But they've also had their share of less than stellar printers, the only real lemon was the RuggedWriter (name should have started with a B, as that was their default state).

        If they really wanted to regenerate customer relationships, they should merge and split the divisions into "shiny crap for ignorant consumers" (80% of PC lineup and 20% of the printer line) and "reliable stuff for those who care".

        Actually come to think of it they should have given the HP name to the "scientific" part of the company that split off as Agilent, but too late no - but too late now, the 'HP way' is no more and "HP" is now a synonym for "Caveat Emptor".

    2. J. Cook Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Quality Control?

      I can't speak of HP's server line Pre-compaq, as I never had any experience with them. their consumer line was crap (the Pavillions), the Kayaks were solid and a treat to work on, and some of the business class desktops were decent enough.

      Pre-merger, Compaq had probably one of the better windows/novell servers around with their proliant line. their deskpros... meh. And don't get me started on their consumer line.

      Post merger, it seems that HP kept the proliants at the expense of their own servers, and dumped most of the PC lineup in favor of the consumer grade shite they peddle now.

      Printer wise? anything inkjet is crap and disposable- HP even admits it for 'business-class' models, and frankly, their low end lasers are not all that great either. The 4000 series are still freaking tanks, though. (we had a 4250 in use by one of our departments and in the three years they had it they ran 2 million pages through it!) And at least the business grade stuff has a single driver for the enterprise finally.

      1. Bill Neal
        Thumb Up

        Re: Quality Control?

        I have a little laser 1020 in the office, and while it may not compare to 2 million pages, the thing gets plenty of use daily and still keeps going. I can't imagine what else I could replace it with for the $50 price.

      2. jon 68
        Holmes

        Re: Quality Control?

        pre-the compaq acquisition, HP made CRAP servers.. they cost too much and underperformed.

        The Compaq proliants on the other hand, were solid midrange boxes, and made outstanding NT/Novell servers. The entire acquisition of Compaq had nothing to do with the pc business, it had to do with capital investments Compaq had made but didn't know how to manage effectively, and those wonderful Proliant servers. There was also a lot less public acknowledged side benefit.. Compaq had acquired DEC. They may be jokes nowadays, but the Alphas were smoking everything in their range, with their only true competition being the Silicon Graphics workstations. So suddenly, HP has not only the arguably best engineering workstation, they also have the best fileservers/directory controllers and midrange 'nix' boxes. Sun be damned.

        For PC's back in these days ( remember there were 'unmentionable' brands still around back then ), if you wanted SOLID pc's for the beancounters.. they got DELL or GATEWAY. And NOT the cheap ones.

        The HP Kayak workstations of the time were awesome beasts that directly competed with the IBM Intellistations.. and it seemed neck and neck. I sold both to customers back then.. their preference, not mine.

        Inkjets of any variety, i consider consumer grade. They don't belong in a business unless it's mom/pop 3 user shop. If you want color, pay for it, and get a color laser or tektronics ( whoops they were 'acquired' ). Both HP and Lexmark have made some TANKS for laser printers over the years.. e.g. laserjet II, III, IV or lexmark N series. Every now and then they seem to forget that lasers are usually in an office somewhere and have to be reliable, not just cheap.

        1. Nigel 11

          Officejet Pro rocks

          You're wrong about inkjets. HP's Officejet Pros routinely last well for tens of thousands of pages around here (university departments), and the cost of replacing them is a small fraction of the cost of the ink they've eaten. As for that ink cost, they are cheaper to run (including replacement cost) than most Laser printers costing the same or £100 more. Plus, they print colour. In short, HP's adverts for these are true.

          Obviously running cost does depend on what one prints. I'm assuming text with the occasional splash of colour on a plain paper background, rather than A4 photographs or big blocky colour graphics. This is as printed by my users - research staff, not undergraduates. Your mileage may vary.

          Colour quality of any colour laser printer isn't a patch on even the crappiest (but not knackered) ink-jet. HP OJPros are not intended for photo-quality printing, but they make a much better stab at it than a laser.

          As for a big fast bomb-proof mono laser printer/ photocopier / Allin1, I'd vote for a Minolta BizHub (though on a sample size of just two).

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Quality Control?

      Sadly my sister has a laptop, must be 8 years old and still works.

  6. mighybaz

    Anent?

    Have you hired the ghost of Geoffrey Chaucer?

  7. John F***ing Stepp

    Ouch

    I have this image in my head of a PC that won't boot up unless the ink is fresh.

    Smile for the chimera.

    Then it rains, the image runs and I realize that no one could possibly be that stu. . .

    Well, never mind.

    1. SoaG

      Re: Ouch

      Heh, reminds me of a recent facepalm here.

      After a year in service a printer suddenly refused to work at all.

      Couldn't even get it to run the head cleaning cycle.

      Turned out the colour cartridge had finally dried out completely and it was demanding a new one. Even though nothing but a couple cartridges a month worth of B&W ever gets run on that one. It was still the starter cartridge from when it went in service December 2010.

    2. Ilgaz

      Re: Ouch

      Not verified the model but it comes from a credible person. One combination scanner/ printer of HP declined to scan a document since it didn't have ink.

  8. Timo

    People still buy HP printers?

    I was not aware that people still buy HP printers. I thought everyone abandonded them 5+ years ago as their drivers kept getting more bloated and useless.

    I agree with the PC comments. I have one for work and its even more poky than the prior Dell. Their software/driver support is almost DIY.

    1. Ilgaz

      Re: People still buy HP printers?

      Their inkjet trickery and lame, annoying driver software killed the respect I had for the brand.

      Anyone knows how much money do they make from consumer inkjet to justify this massive brand slaughter?

    2. Tasogare
      WTF?

      Re: People still buy HP printers?

      Does any manufacturer have printer drivers that *aren't* horribly obnoxious, any more? I moved from Lexmark to HP nearly a decade ago after having exactly this complaint, but these days HP does the same crap.

      If you can't add the driver from Device Manager without non-standard installer popups, it's crap. No, I do not need your Awesome Configuration Utility of Suck. If you absolutely have to have additional functionality, make it an extra tab in the printer properties.

      (assumes windows. Linux seems to have good hp printer support without Stupid Shit, but credit for that probably belongs with the penguins, not HP.)

      1. Nigel 11

        Re: People still buy HP printers?

        If you don't want the extra software, then just ignore the CD that comes with the printer and download the minimum driver from HP's website. You'll find something like "HP Officejet Pro Enterprise Driver - IT Professional Use Only" (at least for the OJP range - dunno about the cheap deskjets).

  9. Steve Knox
    Meh

    Title

    Actually, since the combined entity will be run by the current PC head, it's more like HP's saying that printers are PC accessories.

    I get the joke, but you reached too far to make it.

  10. ratfox
    WTF?

    Is this the onion I am reading?

    They already did a piece about Apple:

    http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-apple-ceo-tim-cook-im-thinking-printers,21207/

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This is precisely why you do not let a woman take charge of a tech company

    Carly Fiorina, Carol Bartz etc.

    How quickly people forget.

    The truth is never 'gender-affirmative', or 'inclusive' or 'diversity-embracing' or whatever politically-correct nonsense you wish to mask it with.

    HP will decline for a while... until Miss Whitman gets the boot.

    1. Mr Nobody 1
      FAIL

      Re: This is precisely why you do not let a woman take charge of a tech company

      Don't let your misogyny get in the way will you ?

    2. Yag
      WTF?

      Re: This is precisely why you do not let a woman take charge of a tech company

      Wow. Just... Wow...

      Be good, man!

      http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2516

  12. Semaj
    Devil

    You only have to look at how their horrible drivers treat your PC to know that they assume that all you want your PC for is to use their printer. It's absolutely disgraceful how insidious and naff their installer is. And you wanna choose not to install "HP Helper Print Internet App Scan Agent" so you untick the box from the form you have to get to from a hyper link? TOUGH, we'll whack it on anyway!

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