PC Makers In Desperate Need of a Reboot 622
nmpost writes in with a story about how hard it is to be a successful PC company in today's world. "Hewlett-Packard Co. used to be known as a place where innovative thinkers flocked to work on great ideas that opened new frontiers in technology. These days, HP is looking behind the times. Coming off a five-year stretch of miscalculations, HP is in such desperate need of a reboot that many investors have written off its chances of a comeback. Consider this: Since Apple Inc. shifted the direction of computing with the release of the iPhone in June 2007, HP's market value has plunged by 60 percent to $35 billion. During that time, HP has spent more than $40 billion on dozens of acquisitions that have largely turned out to be duds so far. HP might have been unchallenged for the ignominious title as technology's most troubled company if not for one its biggest rivals, Dell Inc. Like HP, Dell missed the trends that have turned selling PCs into one of technology's least profitable and slowest growing niches. As a result, Dell's market value has also plummeted by 60 percent, to about $20 billion, since the iPhone's release."
Dell were cooking books (Score:1, Interesting)
A large portion of the reasons for Dell's collapse was because they were caught lying about their accounting.
Re:Dell were cooking books (Score:5, Interesting)
A large portion of the reasons for Dell to lie about their accounting was that they didn't want anyone to figure that they were collapsing.
Depressing times (Score:5, Interesting)
Face it, folks, the gig's up:
Coming: 1. Then end of general purpose computing. 2. "Secure" computing (Palladium-style) 3. Only approved programs via "app stores"
Apple has been too successful. They've got $100bil in the bank, and growing. All the other computer makers are in the doldrums, and are could come to the verge of bankruptcy just by making some more bad decisions.
It just won a billion dollar settlement which is the beginning of their campaign to obliterate choice in tech.
"Normal" people have been completely brainwashed, and it's doubtful we could explain anything in a way that would make them desire tech freedom. When there was just a chance that Saint Apple's holy iDevices might have to pay for the use of some Google patents, US Senators actually held hearings for poor old Apple.
Buy a couple extra laptops. You'll look on them like you do your C64 now.
The market has changed (Score:4, Interesting)
Most consumers want little portable devices and media consumption displays, not general purpose computers.
Sure there are some , but this isn't the 90's where *everyone* wanted a desktop ( or 2 ). And those that do still want them, mostly now realize that last years model is good enough to not to fork out for a new one just because its shiny and the marketing people say they want to..
Sorry folks, its 2012, time to adapt, or stick to the business markets.
Computers are, gulp, appliances? (Score:2, Interesting)
Let's face it, 90% of the consumer market does not feel the burning need to upgrade.
A cpu/mb/ram combo from 4-5 years ago, can still run Windows 7 comparably well. For browsing, e-mail, doing your taxes, and playing media, most machines are there will be okay for a while.
So people are doing to buy a new computer just like they would buy a new TV, microwave, or fridge. Only when they have to.
On the Enterprise market, as companies shift to 5 year cycles for the OS, they may choose to keep the HW stable as well. I see a trend in the large orgs that I work with to lease the computer, and purchase the monitor (which lasts usually longer and less prone to failure). 3 year leases are turning into 4 year lease plans, and even I have one 10,000+ purchasing HW on five year cycles.
And now for the cool market of gamers, media creators, Linux OS users and coders. Yes, they may upgrade every year or so, yet they're in the minority.
I'm personally shocked how many of my friends/acquaintences are dumping $2-3k to get one of those fancy Apple 27" computers because of how cool it looks on their bloody granite kitchen counter. And HP won't have a chance there.
Small footprint computers, media center systems, and tablets would be my guess on the consumer computer devices that will be the ones selling more.
Personal experience (Score:5, Interesting)
My personal experience is that HP and Dell are the preferred suppliers for this sort of thing. Who else are you going to buy? IBM/Lenovo, Acer, or Asus? None of them have the value that Dell or HP have these days for general purpose desktop computing.
Hell, Dell/HP are my preferred server vendors, as well. When it comes to servers, they tend to have less gongshow anachronism than IBM. UEFI actually boots quickly on their platform(s). While they use less Intel Ethernet, it's something I can work with, versus the craptastic RAID controllers shipping on IBMs (at least on Windows; with Linux, we have other options on IBMs, eg. LSI firmware and mdraid).
Do these vendors really have that much historically locked up financially in home user sales that the home PC market flatlining (or, at least, becoming commodity) is enough to sink their business? Servers and storage may not be 'interesting' but they're fairly high profit margin and low support (vs. home user desktops). Intuitively, their profits should be up. So why aren't they?
Re:The market has changed (Score:5, Interesting)
I think there is still quite a market for the general purpose PC...you know, getting real work done. The deal is, PC makers have had a one-two punch for long time that made people upgrade. Either a new version of Windows came out, or a really faster processor came out, and everyone upgraded. It's just to the point that even cheap PCs do what *most* people need, and on top of that Windows upgrades have sucked and made people not want to upgrade.
I think people have confused this funk with the release of the iPad. I guess there is only so much money to go around, but I highly doubt it is just the iPad that has done the industry in.
Re:"PC Makers" (Score:1, Interesting)
Dude, this already happened. Macs are BMWs and PCs are straight out of Detroit.
Re:The PC is Dying (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, sure, but they won't be buying a new one every two years, and the margins for HP and Dell and such will be razor-thin.
Their profits are actually quite good. But then you subtract all the money they pay to incompetent executives, and all the money they waste on pointless mergers and acquisitions, and suddenly they are losing money.
Re:The PC is Dying (Score:5, Interesting)
There will always be someone to service the market. We use all sorts of weird PCs for data capture and analysis at work. The company that makes our sells a few hundred a year tops. Doctorow rants about civil wars aside, there will always be a nice for general purpose (or high end specialty) computing.
Re:Step one (Score:5, Interesting)
I've worked with literally hundreds of MBAs. _One_ of them was smart. He was also/first an EE.
Re:The PC is Dying (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Mod parent up. (Score:5, Interesting)
Where are the tech advances? Where's the engineering?
From personal experience being an ex HP engineer, The MBA's came in and laid us off. Seems we were making too much money and they needed their bonus.
Mind you, they did not do it all at once. First they asked if I would take a 20% pay cut and when I said no, they came back with a request that I take a 10% pay cut. Again I refused and it took them 8 months to find someone to do it for less than me so they could lay me off.
6 months after laying me off, the project was closed. Seems the idiot they hired and saved a bunch of money on, lied on his resume.
Re:fire the board. (Score:5, Interesting)
When you're looking back at Carli Fiorina as your salad days, you should fold up shop.
Fiorina is one of the most overblown, overrated CEOs of her time. Anything she touches turns to shit. She's about as smart as a paper bag.
Re:HP Sux (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:fire the board. (Score:4, Interesting)
Over the last decade maybe, funding for biomedical research has done a similar thing: there's been more federal funding diverted to short-term payoffs, translational research, and less to basic, unguided research. Research of both types are needed, but with translational research, the payoff is closer. Private companies can and should be funding that research since it's more likely they'll be able to make a profit from it. The government needs to stay out of research that is likely to make a return in a few short years: that's just giving money to private industries. The government should be funding research that is important but longer term.
So, yeah, fuck her and all the other MBA types in positions that require long term vision. The only job they should be allowed to take is scratching lottery tickets.