Hewlett Packard Co-chairman Ray Lane has stepped down from his position at the company, and is taking two other board members with him. Lane is leaving following a narrow re-election, and G. Kennedy Thompson and John Hammergren, also both elected by a close margin are departing as well. All three are departing in part due to their roles in the Autonomy acquisition scandal that rocked the company in 2012.
I would say the walls are starting to crumble, but I think that started years ago.
“Dell has a very tough road ahead. The company faces an extended period of uncertainty and transition that will not be good for its customers. And with a significant debt load, Dell’s ability to invest in new products and services will be extremely limited. Leveraged buyouts tend to leave existing customers and innovation at the curb. We believe Dell’s customers will now be eager to explore alternatives, and HP plans to take full advantage of that opportunity.”
That’s cold.
Todd Bradley, the head of HP’s PC business:
“I’d hardly call Surface competition,” Bradley said in an interview with IDG Enterprise. He listed several reasons, “One, very limited distribution. It tends to be slow and a little kludgey as you use it …. It’s expensive. Holistically, the press has made a bigger deal out of Surface than what the world has chosen to believe.”
This coming from one of Microsoft’s partners.
The company will take an $8 billion charge in the third quarter related to that $14 billion merger, and including the massive writeoff, HP expects to report a loss of as much as $4.49 per share, or approximately $8.85 billion.
A brutal assessment.
There is just too much stupid to mention with this one.
Reuters: The storied Silicon Valley company, which has been trying to move past the internal upheaval that marked 2011, posted quarterly sales declines in three of its key units: personal computers, printers and enterprise equipment. The PC market sucks for … Continued
Arik Hesseldahl:
Jon Rubinstein, the former Apple executive who took over handheld maker Palm and moved with it to Hewlett-Packard in a 2010 acquisition, has left HP effective today, AllThingsD has learned.Rubinstein is said to have no immediate plans, and had completed a 12-24 month commitment to stay with HP after the acquisition. “Jon has fulfilled his commitment and we wish him well,” HP spokeswoman Mylene Mangalindan said.
Unfortunate, but unexpected considering what’s happened with Palm and webOS.
Chris Ziegler for The Verge: Following up on its December announcement that it would open source the platform — a last-ditch effort to make it viable — HP has gone into detail today on exactly when and how developers will … Continued
Arik Hesseldahl, for AllThingsD: For the full year, HP saw its shipments fall by nearly 5 percent; Dell’s fell by more than 8 percent; and Acer’s fell 30 percent in the U.S. So who grew? Apple. It saw its shipments … Continued
Moving Brands partnered with HP as their lead agency to set a creative vision for the HP brand. The vision was to transform the world’s biggest technology company into the world’s most powerful brand. HP would become the blueprint of a moving brand, built for a moving world.
Not once did they just tell the truth:
“We shamelessly ripped off Apple.”
VentureBeat: A well-placed source tells us that HP is currently looking to rid itself of Palm as soon as possible, and that Amazon is the closest to finalizing the deal, among a handful of contenders. If true, it means that … Continued
Writing for GigaOM, David Churbuck outlines what he would tell the new CEO of HP to do: Get a better board. It sounds like a shit fight in the monkey cage at the zoo inside of HPs board. The CEO … Continued
Tim Bajarin for Techpinions: Only time will tell if she was the right one to take over at this time in HP’s history but she has the leadership and communication skills HP needs now to keep it from sinking any … Continued
CNN: On the job as chief executive for not even 11 months, Leo Apotheker will leave HP a wealthy man: He has already taken home most of his $1.2 million annual salary, a $4 million signing bonus, and an additional … Continued
HP today announced that its board of directors has appointed Meg Whitman as president and chief executive officer. “We are fortunate to have someone of Meg Whitman’s caliber and experience step up to lead HP,” said Lane. “We are at … Continued
Kara Swisher: Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman is being considered by Hewlett-Packard directors as a possible candidate for CEO, in a move that would replace its current leader Léo Apotheker, according to several sources close to the situation. I wonder … Continued
John Paczkowski: The company, which announced plans to shutter its webOS hardware business back in August, is sacking hundreds of employees as a result. Sources close to HP say the company plans to lay off as many as 525 employees, … Continued
Wall Street Journal: Boast that you’re going to attack Apple’s iPad with your $499 TouchPad. Then dump your TouchPad in a $99 fire sale and announce you’re just not going to offer it anymore. Telegraph to the world that you … Continued
When you’re the CEO of a company and something happens to your competitor, you should show some class or at the very least keep you mouth shut. Of course, Michael Dell is not known for his class — remember the … Continued
What kind of perverse, unforgiving parallel universe did I wake up in that allowed the PlayBook to still be on the market, and HP’s TouchPad has been discontinued.
If you were thinking about an HP TouchPad instead of the iPad, don’t bother. HP announced Thursday that it is discontinuing operations for webOS devices, including the TouchPad and webOS phones.
Arik Hesseldahl: According to one source who’s seen internal HP reports, Best Buy has taken delivery of 270,000 TouchPads and has so far managed to sell only 25,000, or less than 10 percent of the units in its inventory. A … Continued
HP’s TouchPad tablet hits stores tomorrow, and while the device is being compared to Apple’s iPad 2, an HP executive told The Loop that’s not its target market.
I have to admit, I’m kind of rooting for HP, the TouchPad, and the webOS. Apple needs strong competitors in the tablet market to help push things forward, and I think companies with control of both hardware and software are … Continued
RIM had a chance to take back the market, but it appears the company will not be successful. Now we look to other competitors to take up the battle against Apple.
The most likely candidate now is webOS. Originally developed by Palm, under the leadership of ex-Apple executive Jon Jon Rubinstein, webOS features a very user-friendly graphical user interface. In a lot of ways, the operating system is the most Apple-like on the market.
webOS is also complimented on its multitasking capabilities, so there is more to it than just a pretty face.
The strength of webOS was one of the leading factors in HP purchasing Palm in April 2010.
HP seems to be taking a page from Apple’s playbook, but even extending it further, if recent comments from the company’s CEO are any indication.
It’s kind of amusing to see what’s going on in the mobile world these days. HP saying that RIM is imitating its WebOS.
Apple has an internal goal to sell 40 million iPads in 2011 and the company has taken steps to make sure it has enough touch panels to meet those numbers.