HP Split

[WRGKMC]

HP is splitting its company this week. Its separating consumer stuff from Business servers and services.

It doesn't see like long ago when they combined those together after they bought Compact.

 

Not sure why they're doing it. It does require people to move to different locations and or hire new people at a cost of $400M.

I suppose having competing management systems in each can make for a healthy bottom line. I'm sure there are other

financial factors going on there too with stocks. HP makes good products but they have made several bad decisions in the past.

That canceled their release of their a touch pads a few years back. I suspect someone made it worth their while for

them to stay out of the market because the 32G touch pad I have is a great piece of hardware.

[Phil O'Keefe]

HP is splitting its company this week. Its separating consumer stuff from Business servers and services.

It doesn't see like long ago when they combined those together after they bought Compact.

 

 

Yeah - sounds like HP and Compaq to me too.

[Anderton]

It was probably a move initiated by the Department of Redundancy Department.

[MikeRivers]

It probably has somethig to do with cloud services. That's the big thing with computer companies now that their bread-and-butter consumers are using their phones for what they used to use computers for.

 

At the moment, I'm trying to troubleshoot an H-P oscillator. At least I could find a manual with schematics on the Boat Anchors web site. Can't find it at H-P or Agilent.

[Craig Vecchione]

Ah yes, the corporate re-org. As someone who's spent considerable time in the employ of major and mid-sized corps, I'd guess some VP was hired and had to justify his job. Since HP was already 'consolidated', the only thing he/she could recommend is to 'diversify'.

 

The veep will get a slap on the back and an 'attaboy', and people who do the actual work will either get laid off or have to "pick up the slack" left by those who got the tap on the shoulder...

[WRGKMC]

Question comes to mind. Why would Gibson have Epiphone or Fender Have Squire? Everyone knows who they are owned by. The companies could have just as easily put out budget models under the main brand.

 

HP is separating their high end business stuff from the consumer gear. That's not much different then what the two big Music companies did.

 

The company says its so they can react faster to changes in the market, but they aren't the first to split. I believe IBM did the same thing before selling off their consumer stuff. If you wanted to hold onto the high dollar market, it might make sense to split your product, personnel, and stocks first. Support of high end servers has to be local because companies cant have long down times.

 

Consumer stuff doesn't have the same direct support model. They are bought through retailers and have warrantee support through those retailers and phone support overseas. If someone needs repairs its contracted to techs who work for local dealers who are licensed to do factory repairs, or Tech support just send the parts to a consumer and they install the parts themselves. This is no different then what Dell or any of the other computer dealers do.

 

There aren't many computer repair shops that do local repairs on computers for a number of reasons. Reliability and simplicity of repair vs cost are the two main factors. Its easier to send someone a board or a whole unit in the mail then it is to have a middle man do the same thing. Even with music gear, most is factory repair or replace now so the model for consumer stuff has been established decades ago.

[onelife]

I worked in IT for a while and a lot of my training was from Compaq Computer Corporation. Their philosophy was to build an IBM compatible computer but, instead of simply building a cheaper clone they wanted to build a computer that worked better. This resulted in their computers, servers in particular, being both high performance and extremely reliable machines.

 

That, along with an international service network that provided support to certified dealers/technicians is what HP bought when they took over the company.

 

To me, the split between the consumer and the high end corporate branches of the business seems natural because of the huge difference in objectives.

 

 

 

 

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

Question comes to mind. Why would Gibson have Epiphone or Fender Have Squire? Everyone knows who they are owned by. The companies could have just as easily put out budget models under the main brand.

 

Why does GM have Chevy, Buick and Cadillac? It's the same basic thing.

 

HP is separating their high end business stuff from the consumer gear. That's not much different then what the two big Music companies did.

 

True... but as has already been pointed out, it wasn't all that long ago that they were trying to do the exact opposite by consolidating HP and Compaq. Maybe they should have left well enough alone to begin with.

 

 

 

 

 

[Craig Vecchione]

Indeed, I wasn't merely cynical in my prior post. If this was a Geico commercial, the voiceover guy would be saying,

"If you're a corporate executive, you diversify or consolidate. It's what you do".

These moves draw attention (we're talking about it, right?) which equates to free publicity. They give an excuse (as if any is needed these days) to dump employees. Both of these side "benefits" usually mean a bump in shareholder interest to buy stock. Since that's the real primary objective of public corps, there's little incentive to leave the structure intact for long.

[Anderton]

Question comes to mind. Why would Gibson have Epiphone or Fender Have Squire? Everyone knows who they are owned by. The companies could have just as easily put out budget models under the main brand.

 

Gibson guitars are made in the USA, Epiphones are made offshore. But they have always been different companies with different names and brands, in fact Epiphone has been around longer than Gibson. So it doesn't make sense to put them together. They're even run quite independently. I work across pretty much all the Gibson brands, but the only work I've done for Epiphone is the beginner's guide that ships with the Pro 1 guitars.

 

It's handy being able to answer Gibson questions and know what I'm talking about