HP ditches the hardware business

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HP ditches the hardware business

Post by melancholy »

So basically HP has decided to not only drop out of the tablet and phone business just 48 days after launching their Touchpad, but they have apparently decided to drop out of the consumer computer business altogether. With their acquisition of Autonomy, a business software company, HP plans to drop their entire hardware business (with the exception of printers) and focus strictly on software and cloud based services for businesses. Their tentative plan is apparently to ditch everything consumer related within 12-18 months.

This just blows my mind, as HP is the biggest PC manufacturer in the US. It makes up 1/3 of their yearly revenue and is pretty much owns the Windows based PC market. Now of course it probably means that another company will just come in and buy up that division, but this all seems like crazy drastic measures immediately following their failed 2 month tablet venture.
Wall Street Journal wrote: Hewlett-Packard Co., the world's largest personal-computer maker, is exploring a spinoff of its PC business, an about-face that highlights how growth has pivoted from the computers that so long ruled the industry toward software and mobile devices, where H-P has largely failed to compete.

H-P said its board is evaluating strategic options for its PC business, which could include a "full or partial separation." It also will abandon efforts to sell tablets and smartphones that challenged Apple Inc.'s iPad and iPhone.

At the same time, H-P agreed to buy U.K. software firm Autonomy Corp. for about $10.25 billion, seeking to move further into the higher-profit business of analyzing data for corporations.
...
Facing low margins and low growth in the PC businesses, Mr. Apotheker decided there would be no sacred cows and it would be best to get out of the computer business, people familiar with the matter said.

His goal is to reposition H-P into an enterprise business and move away from consumer products, the people said.

A $1 billion investment disclosed in May by New York hedge-fund manager John Paulson in H-P was also a "wake up call" for the company, one of the people said. Mr. Paulson told H-P executives that the company had to make moves to unlock shareholder value, the person added.

While H-P will pursue a spinoff, it will also be open to other potential offers if they are more attractive, people familiar with the matter said. The company said it expects the process to last 12 to 18 months.
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Re: HP ditches the hardware business

Post by DaMadFiddler »

Ars Technica actually has a pretty good commentary piece on this:

http://arstechnica.com/business/news/20 ... siness.ars
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Re: HP ditches the hardware business

Post by melancholy »

That is an interesting article, actually. At least I now understand the rationale. But I'm not exactly thrilled with the idea that the world of computing is changing into Apple and Google's world. I like i-stuff as much as the next person, but I use them alongside full featured computers, not in lieu of them. The idea that everything computing is becoming a $1 app industry bothers me.
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Re: HP ditches the hardware business

Post by Jeeba Jabba »

melancholy wrote:That is an interesting article, actually. At least I now understand the rationale. But I'm not exactly thrilled with the idea that the world of computing is changing into Apple and Google's world. I like i-stuff as much as the next person, but I use them alongside full featured computers, not in lieu of them. The idea that everything computing is becoming a $1 app industry bothers me.

Same here... As scary as the thought of PC gaming dying and giving full passage to consoles (goodbye current graphics, mods, actual player-driven game communities), I'm even more scared of tablet gaming.
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Re: HP ditches the hardware business

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It surprises me to find people in a tech-minded community such as this so uncomfortable about what's coming next. But that's mainly because I completely disagree and am ready for the demise of the personal computer. I haven't replace my PC with my iPad...but that's only because it "isn't quite there yet".

For me, services like Netflix, Spotify and OnLive are getting closer to what I want as a typical lazy consumer, and I'll happily chuck my Windows PC away once a single monthly subscription can pump my entire life down a juicy internet connection and into a cheap and functional box tucked under my TV.
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Re: HP ditches the hardware business

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BoneyCork wrote:It surprises me to find people in a tech-minded community such as this so uncomfortable about what's coming next. But that's mainly because I completely disagree and am ready for the demise of the personal computer. I haven't replace my PC with my iPad...but that's only because it "isn't quite there yet".

For me, services like Netflix, Spotify and OnLive are getting closer to what I want as a typical lazy consumer, and I'll happily chuck my Windows PC away once a single monthly subscription can pump my entire life down a juicy internet connection and into a cheap and functional box tucked under my TV.


..Because this is a techsavvy community... and we like tech, not simplified devices aimed at giving your grandmother her first access to email.
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Re: HP ditches the hardware business

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Jeeba Jabba wrote:
BoneyCork wrote:It surprises me to find people in a tech-minded community such as this so uncomfortable about what's coming next. But that's mainly because I completely disagree and am ready for the demise of the personal computer. I haven't replace my PC with my iPad...but that's only because it "isn't quite there yet".

For me, services like Netflix, Spotify and OnLive are getting closer to what I want as a typical lazy consumer, and I'll happily chuck my Windows PC away once a single monthly subscription can pump my entire life down a juicy internet connection and into a cheap and functional box tucked under my TV.
..Because this is a techsavvy community... and we like tech, not simplified devices aimed at giving your grandmother her first access to email.
So you feel that technology should not be evolving to enable more people to communicate and access information, but should remain pointlessly complex to preserve a level of elitism among its users because it defines their superiority over other groups of people, for example, the elderly? What a pathetic and backward way of looking at things. The whole point of technology is to make life simpler.
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Re: HP ditches the hardware business

Post by Jeeba Jabba »

BoneyCork wrote:
Jeeba Jabba wrote:
BoneyCork wrote:It surprises me to find people in a tech-minded community such as this so uncomfortable about what's coming next. But that's mainly because I completely disagree and am ready for the demise of the personal computer. I haven't replace my PC with my iPad...but that's only because it "isn't quite there yet".

For me, services like Netflix, Spotify and OnLive are getting closer to what I want as a typical lazy consumer, and I'll happily chuck my Windows PC away once a single monthly subscription can pump my entire life down a juicy internet connection and into a cheap and functional box tucked under my TV.
..Because this is a techsavvy community... and we like tech, not simplified devices aimed at giving your grandmother her first access to email.
So you feel that technology should not be evolving to enable more people to communicate and access information, but should remain pointlessly complex to preserve a level of elitism among its users because it defines their superiority over other groups of people, for example, the elderly? What a pathetic and backward way of looking at things. The whole point of technology is to make life simpler.
Swing and a miss. Enthusiasts of 'complex' technology exist because they WANT amazing graphics and processing capabilities, not because they want to keep you out of their fucking club. Pointlessly complex. Yep. All of the hardware I've invested in on this machine over the past year is completely pointless. Still can't play a game at 20 FPS in 800x600.


I'm not that big of a gear head when it comes to vehicles, but I fucking hate people who restore old cars and build hotrods, because I can't participate. Well, I could. I just have no interest in fast cars. I'd much rather if electric golf carts were the only street-legal mode of private transportation.
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Re: HP ditches the hardware business

Post by Jeeba Jabba »

Stupid asshole with a hobby who needs to wake the fuck up:



What he should be doing:
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Re: HP ditches the hardware business

Post by melancholy »

BoneyCork wrote:
Jeeba Jabba wrote:
BoneyCork wrote:It surprises me to find people in a tech-minded community such as this so uncomfortable about what's coming next. But that's mainly because I completely disagree and am ready for the demise of the personal computer. I haven't replace my PC with my iPad...but that's only because it "isn't quite there yet".

For me, services like Netflix, Spotify and OnLive are getting closer to what I want as a typical lazy consumer, and I'll happily chuck my Windows PC away once a single monthly subscription can pump my entire life down a juicy internet connection and into a cheap and functional box tucked under my TV.
..Because this is a techsavvy community... and we like tech, not simplified devices aimed at giving your grandmother her first access to email.
So you feel that technology should not be evolving to enable more people to communicate and access information, but should remain pointlessly complex to preserve a level of elitism among its users because it defines their superiority over other groups of people, for example, the elderly? What a pathetic and backward way of looking at things. The whole point of technology is to make life simpler.
No, the whole point of technology is to empower people. Technology empowers my grandma to receive photos of her grandchildren from two States away. Technology empowers college students to make crazy Kinect-powered threat detection helicopters. Technology empowers Jeeba to render immense 3D worlds to lose himself in. And it empowers me to take bizarre vintage-looking photos of my son.

My fear isn't from HP leaving the market or that tablets might some day rule the tech world. My fear is that with each step in the direction of simplicity, we take a step away from the inventiveness and creativity of people. Nobody is going to make awesome whiteboard Wiimote mods with an iPad because Apple cuts off that outlet by locking their devices. And nobody is going to make amazing graphic design pieces or write novels on limited $1 apps.

And maybe my fears are completely unfounded. But I'm watching the PC market shrink, watching Microsoft fail at the one thing they have dominated at, and watching iPad sales blow through the ceiling. Its becoming a simplified, app-centric market that's making the average user into techies and the techies into average users. And where's the individualism in that?
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Re: HP ditches the hardware business

Post by DaMadFiddler »

I think Mel hit the nail on the head here.
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Re: HP ditches the hardware business

Post by mankrip »

Agreed. From that point of view, what's happening is that most people simply don't want to be empowered. They don't want to have full control over what they're doing, and they also don't want to make groundbreaking things. They don't want to think, they just want any results in order to go on - no matter how simplistic or crappy those results are, as long as those results don't fall too short of their expectations. And this is where the consumer market seems to be aiming itself at: quick results.

After all, even though power users can do a lot more in the same time, it takes much longer to become a power user.

The corporative market must certainly have a greater ratio of power users than the consumer market, so maybe that's what HP is going after.
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Re: HP ditches the hardware business

Post by Quzar »

Web 2.0 was supposed to make free and easy the facilities of content creation and publishing to all users, and to a large part it did. This new appified 'garden fence' computing environment that is emerging does exactly the opposite, forcing users (for the most part) back into being purely content consumers. It makes me wonder if it's not an effort to move us back to a system where content is made costly again due to lack of supply.
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Re: HP ditches the hardware business

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melancholy wrote:
BoneyCork wrote:
Jeeba Jabba wrote:
BoneyCork wrote:It surprises me to find people in a tech-minded community such as this so uncomfortable about what's coming next. But that's mainly because I completely disagree and am ready for the demise of the personal computer. I haven't replace my PC with my iPad...but that's only because it "isn't quite there yet".

For me, services like Netflix, Spotify and OnLive are getting closer to what I want as a typical lazy consumer, and I'll happily chuck my Windows PC away once a single monthly subscription can pump my entire life down a juicy internet connection and into a cheap and functional box tucked under my TV.
..Because this is a techsavvy community... and we like tech, not simplified devices aimed at giving your grandmother her first access to email.
So you feel that technology should not be evolving to enable more people to communicate and access information, but should remain pointlessly complex to preserve a level of elitism among its users because it defines their superiority over other groups of people, for example, the elderly? What a pathetic and backward way of looking at things. The whole point of technology is to make life simpler.
No, the whole point of technology is to empower people. Technology empowers my grandma to receive photos of her grandchildren from two States away. Technology empowers college students to make crazy Kinect-powered threat detection helicopters. Technology empowers Jeeba to render immense 3D worlds to lose himself in. And it empowers me to take bizarre vintage-looking photos of my son.

My fear isn't from HP leaving the market or that tablets might some day rule the tech world. My fear is that with each step in the direction of simplicity, we take a step away from the inventiveness and creativity of people. Nobody is going to make awesome whiteboard Wiimote mods with an iPad because Apple cuts off that outlet by locking their devices. And nobody is going to make amazing graphic design pieces or write novels on limited $1 apps.

And maybe my fears are completely unfounded. But I'm watching the PC market shrink, watching Microsoft fail at the one thing they have dominated at, and watching iPad sales blow through the ceiling. Its becoming a simplified, app-centric market that's making the average user into techies and the techies into average users. And where's the individualism in that?
I see your point, but I think there will always be niche products for niche markets (A £500 copy of Photoshop was never aimed at the mass market), and the 99% of the population who just want technology to service them (like myself) will benefit from simplified hardware. I'm willing to bet the majority of Windows users don't use the majority of Windows features...so it isn't the "best" product for them. They're paying for stuff they don't need, and losing what they do need amongst it. I just don't think there's anything wrong with companies realising this and coming up with a solution.
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Re: HP ditches the hardware business

Post by Code-Red »

http://www.amazon.com/HP-FB356UT-QUALCO ... 0056UOUHS/

They're having a firesale, Amazon is pretty much the last place to grab these. 16GB w/ Wifi for $99, 32GB w/ Wifi for $149. One fuck of a deal! I'd grab a few of them if I were in the States.
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Re: HP ditches the hardware business

Post by Jeeba Jabba »

Says $495...
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Re: HP ditches the hardware business

Post by Code-Red »

They've been sold out from that supplier on Amazon then. If you're interested in buying one, here's another link:

http://www.costcentral.com/proddetail/H ... /11394713/

Place is legit. Lots of guys from Overclock.net ordering from there right now. The server is a little slow, since its getting hit so hard.
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Re: HP ditches the hardware business

Post by mankrip »

Code-Red wrote:They've been sold out from that supplier on Amazon then. If you're interested in buying one, here's another link:

http://www.costcentral.com/proddetail/H ... /11394713/

Place is legit. Lots of guys from Overclock.net ordering from there right now. The server is a little slow, since its getting hit so hard.
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Re: HP ditches the hardware business

Post by pixel »

BoneyCork wrote:
melancholy wrote:
BoneyCork wrote:
Jeeba Jabba wrote:
BoneyCork wrote:[sic]
[sic]
[sic]
[sic]
I see your point, but I think there will always be niche products for niche markets (A £500 copy of Photoshop was never aimed at the mass market), and the 99% of the population who just want technology to service them (like myself) will benefit from simplified hardware. I'm willing to bet the majority of Windows users don't use the majority of Windows features...so it isn't the "best" product for them. They're paying for stuff they don't need, and losing what they do need amongst it. I just don't think there's anything wrong with companies realising this and coming up with a solution.
I agree with BoneyCork. The market may have changed the game, but the consumers have stayed the same. I don't get the correlation between use an tablet with apps and losing "full control over what they're doing." This argument assumes that people have been yielding the full power of traditional PCs before the dawn of tablets. After years of home computer repairs, there's no way anyone can assume the average PC user knows anything about their hardware and software outside of the tasks they need to complete.

I think most of you are telecasting your own computer prowess over the masses who have never held a fraction of the knowledge. There's an assumption that everyone, everywhere has the curiosity with technology. But why do services like Geek Squad exist? It because many people see a full-functioning PC as an acceptable burden. Large numbers of people deal with software errors, viruses and malware because traditional PC were the only entry point to services such as the Internet. With easier-to-use devices, however, the PC's domination is supplanted by the tablet namely for their intuitiveness.

I know for a fact my grandma doesn't even need a Windows PC. She e-mails her family, checks Facebook and browses recipes. Why should a 79-year-old woman own an entire PC for the purposes that a tablet would execute flawlessly? If a child wants to play some colorful edutainment, should a parent handcraft a gaming rig to visit Disney.com? On the opposite, would The Witcher 2 be released on Android? Most of us on this site are not the typical end-user and neither do the typical play Battlefield 3 on max settings on their three-monitor, liquid-cooled setup.
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Re: HP ditches the hardware business

Post by melancholy »

I think really the whole sum-up is that shit is changing, and the realization that I have no idea what will be the eventual outcome of these changes bothers me.
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