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."
Didn't they want to already? (Score:4, Insightful)
And when HP wanted to purge itself o the 'PC Maker' part of their business to do a reboot the shareholders revolted.
Step one (Score:5, Insightful)
Feed all the MBAs to the paper shredder.
Mod parent up. (Score:5, Insightful)
Fewer MBAs, more engineers.
You're supposed to be a tech company. Where are the tech advances? Where's the engineering? Why are your products almost indistinguishable from Dell's?
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:Step one (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Step one (Score:5, Insightful)
My experience is that those who went back later in life for an MBA actually understand how to use the education. The problem is, they're going back because they have to get the degree to be competitive. It's become a gatekeeper degree: no MBA, no interview. It has value, but not in the way that it's so commonly being used.
Re:Step one (Score:5, Informative)
I have an MBA, but in my defense I also have several years of grad work in theoretical physics and over a decade as senior sysadmin at a large academic compute cluster, so I hope I have enough street cred when I say this.
Don't confuse the body of knowledge, with the kind of people who are attracted to it. Economics, finance, org behavior, strategy are all legitimate domains of knowledge, and can be just as interesting and thought-provoking as theoretical physics.
I got the MBA because a) I like the math-ier parts of business and b) ageism exists in technology, so it's best to add another leg to your stool while you can.
A MBA degree is like a can of car wax. Put wax on a Ferrari, you'll have a shiny race car. Put it on a turd, and at the end you'll still just have a turd. What you take out of a MBA program is largely what you bring into it, and a lot of people don't bring much other than a desire for a promotion with a six-figure salary.
Re:Step one (Score:5, Insightful)
That sounds all well and good, and I'll agree that those other domains are certainly legitimate domains of knowledge which can be very interesting in their own right. However, if people who are genuinely stupid are getting MBA degrees, something's wrong. Just like you should be able to earn a degree in theoretical physics if you're a moron, you shouldn't be able to get a Master's degree in anything, at least from an accredited school. University degrees are supposed to show not only that you showed up for class, but that you understand material that is at least somewhat difficult to grasp (or else why would you need to go to a University to learn it, instead of just picking up a pamphlet?). If this many morons are getting these degrees, it shows there's something wrong with the places handing them out, and it makes the degree look worthless for everyone.
Re:Step one (Score:5, Informative)
MBAs are so bad, as a lot, that we attorneys make fun of them. That can't be a good sign. And considering what they're supposedly trained to do, I've seen an MBA member of a negotiating team single-handedly destroy the entire negotiation through dogged use of the meaningless jargon that was apparently his main curriculum.
From what I can tell, the worst thing about MBA training is that it teaches you to bravely march into any situation, including technical fields and cultural contexts about which you know nothing, and try to take charge. To administrate, if you will. That's a disaster.
Re:Step one (Score:5, Funny)
Dumb is where you find it. The dumbest person ideologically I have ever met was a chief scientist where I work. Always going on about what he'd do if he were in charge. Batshit stuff. I finally told him that should that ever come about, I'd *personally* command the rebel army against him. The baffled look on his face was priceless, and it stopped him prattling on about mothereffing, fartsucking politics in my presence at least.
Re: (Score:3)
Feed all the MBAs to the paper shredder.
The slashdot way:
Attrition... (Score:5, Insightful)
That was before they sold off much of the good stuff, and spun the last of it off as Agilent. Today's HP is HP only in name.
Commodity PCs are boring. (Score:3)
Re:Commodity PCs are boring. (Score:5, Insightful)
Commodity PCs might be boring, but they are still needed and there is still a big market for them. The real problem is here:
HP, like too many other companies, has reduced its R&D to almost nothing and tried to get new products and ideas by just going out and buying other companies.
Re:Commodity PCs are boring. (Score:4, Insightful)
iBUYPOWER and other similar, smaller companies have something in common that Dell, HP, et al do not have: they're small and nimble, and they specialize. They do one thing, and they do it well. Even if HP/Dell/etc. have departments or divisions which specialize, they can't compete because of the corporate overhead. See: Alienware's ultimate mediocre standing.
I'm sure a big part of the reason why they're not doing well is because people don't buy as many PCs anymore, but people do still have PCs (and laptops). They're more resilient and last longer now than they did a decade ago, and that's another part of it. I don't think the 'iPhone craze' has much to do with it, that's a misnomer.
The fact is that any successful product company (or industry) will become a commodity unless they are seen by the public at large as adding value to whatever they integrate. Don't kid yourself - everyone's an integrator to one degree or another, even Intel, Nvidia, and AMD. They're just integrating at a different level - and adding value.
With Intel, nvidia, and AMD all providing largely/fully integrated systems out the door (via integrated chipsets and GPUs), and most people 'just' wanting things like email, web browsing, and maybe some video playback and light gaming, there's nothing to distinguish the companies which put those devices in a box and label it with their brand when none of them bother to be anything but acceptable (or universally horrible - I don't know, I've not bought any of their stuff for home use for years), and few aesthetically distinguishing factors between them, why care?
Apple's products may not be that different than HPs and Dells, but they at least market their shit^Wproducts well. They have a frenzy of marketing every 3 or so years (or whatever it is now) when a new product is due, and they provide their customers with a very narrow set of products to pick from (something like two configuration options per line?). Then they provide good support (so I've heard is the perception), which is entirely unheard of pretty much anywhere, anymore, in an industry where "good support" hasn't been seen for a decade.
Re:Commodity PCs are boring. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is, I wish they would stick more to boring commodity PCs. Instead they pre-load it with utterly useless software.
The amount of sheer crap they install on PCs now is maddening. On both my wife's HP laptop, and her mom's Toshiba, I had to go in and disable/uninstall of those stupid *$^%!@ extra "assistant" pieces of crap. They don't do anything except hog up the CPU and memory, and mostly amount to something which says "I see you are using a computer, would you like us to optimize that for you".
I wouldn't buy a PC from any of the manufacturers which install any of this shit. Give me a vanilla install of Windows, and leave me the hell alone. I don't want your wizard, agent, helper, toolbar, or any other of this crap. It doesn't help, and it effectively downgrades my machines as it's using all of the memory and much of the CPU.
The problem with these companies is they think they can make something better to brand the OS, and they end up selling a shitty machine with a crappy user experience. Stay out of there, you're clearly not qualified for this.
And, from what I've seen of my wife's personal and work laptops ... well, HP sells low end hardware at a high-end price. I would personally not buy from them again. Give me a boring old beige box PC from a local system builder any day that has quality parts in it -- I can always put some "Type R" stickers on the case later if I feel it needs a little something extra. ;-)
Re:Commodity PCs are boring. (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft has a program for no crapware where they also tune the OS called Micosoft signature: http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/html/pbPage.MicrosoftSignature [microsoftstore.com]
Re: (Score:3)
They aren't really aimed at the sub $500 market. I'm a bit surprised Microsoft would let one in the program. The goal is more like $800+. And no question you can cheaper off the signature plan. OEMs get ~ $75 for filling your PC with crapware and they pass those savings on.
"PC Makers" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
>>>All the ultrabooks and "surface"s in the world won't change the fact that Windows computers are a commodity
Let's have a car analogy:
A car used to be unique with all kinds of looks and interfaces (imagine driving with a throttle stick instead of wheel+pedal). Now they all look pretty identical (wedge-shaped for max aerodynamics). The only thing that differentiates them is headlight style and size. Perhaps PCs should try different shapes (looks like a car... or a ball... or a book).
Re: (Score:3)
Re:"PC Makers" (Score:4, Insightful)
Not quite.
It's more like Dell is a Ford and a Macs are just Lincoln or Mercury.
Same parts inside. Different exterior.
Re:"PC Makers" (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. Apple is still Lincoln. Same parts as Dell.
If you want to pretend to be like a BMW owner you will actually have to pay for an BMW and stop being a clueless poser.
Re:"PC Makers" (Score:4, Informative)
Not really the same parts as Dell.
Seth
Re:"PC Makers" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"PC Makers" (Score:4, Insightful)
In part, this is what the Apple/Samsung lawsuit is about. If you follow the "Innovator's Dilemma" arguments, the PC makers, and now a lot of the Android makers (tablets and phones) are competing solely on price, because the innovation to get any other advantage has already occurred.
Certainly Apple has invested a lot in product development for iPhone, iPad, iOS, etc. Whether these things should be patentable in the first place, should be separated from whether enforcing the patents, "trade dress", etc results in more or less innovation.
The question for HP in particular, is whether they can innovate on top of (a) Microsoft licensed technologies, (b) Android licensed technologies, or (c) invest time and energies in doing something original. (c) is definitely a gamble, but it's not clear that HP can ever grow out of the bottom by following either (a) or (b).
What about Compaq? (Score:2)
I interviewed with them in 1999. Back then they seemed like an excellent company, with a campus that reminded me of college (lots of small buildings interconnected by pathways).
Re: (Score:3)
I interviewed with them in 1999. Back then they seemed like an excellent company, with a campus that reminded me of college (lots of small buildings interconnected by pathways).
Now that campus IS a college. A couple of years ago HP sold off most of the Compaq buildings to Lone Star College.
This [youtube.com] is what happened to the (probably still perfectly usable) Compaq buildings that the college didn't want.
Re: (Score:3)
Compaq made the most shitty PCs in the universe when they existed. Naturally, they were bought by HP, because HP likes shitty computers.
Clearly, you have never used a DEC Rainbow 100. Given its joint heritage, the only things you could be certain about it were:
(1) You could disassemble it completely with a ball point pen and a dime
(2) The serial port was never going to work
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.
Re:Depressing times (Score:5, Insightful)
"Normal" people have been completely brainwashed
I don't think that normal people have been brainwashed, I think that they never needed a general purpose computer in the first place. They kept on having problems with their general purpose computers, and Apple has been able to make most of those problems go away for most people. The market rewards that kind of behavior.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Nope. Most people are buying Android.
This is why Apple is throwing lawsuits at Samsung. They've seen the writing on the wall and realize that they can't live off of camp followers and platform partisans.
apt-get is what you get when you jailbreak an iDevice.
Re:Depressing times (Score:4, Insightful)
I can create and use my own Debian repository with little more than a text editor.
THAT is what an open tool set allows for.
I don't have to be a Fortune 500 company. I don't have to be a University. I don't have to be a developer. I don't have to have a PhD. I don't have to own another computer dedicated to the walled garden.
Thus the "power users helping the rest of us" thing that you can have in the Ubuntu community that doesn't and really can't exist in Apple's payola nirvana.
Re: (Score:3)
I dunno, type at a decent rate?
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.
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:The market has changed (Score:5, Insightful)
PCs are no longer shiny and new. PCs aren't so immature that they need a major OS upgrade or a major hardware upgrade every year or every 3 years. They're a mature product.
You can use a 5 year old Compaq as an HTPC. You can use a $300 low profile bargain PC for everything but heavy gaming.
The market is saturated.
Fully amortized and discarded office PCs are more than adequate for the needs of most home users.
Re:The market has changed (Score:4, Informative)
I think there is still quite a market for the general purpose PC...you know, getting real work done.
The problem is that comparatively few people do "real work."
In the mid-90s, everyone wanted to check out this thing called "The Internet." But the only way to do it was to buy a PC. So they did. Then the spouse bought one. Then we bought them for the kids. Because that was the only way to get on "The Internet."
Today? Not so much.
I can watch YouTube from my TV. I can look at maps on my phone. I can Skype from my tablet. So there's no real need for that big clumsy PC in the corner. Unless I want to do "real work."
So I can go back to having one PC in the house--y'know, for the times somebody needs to do real work in the house. Other than that, I can get by quite easily with a tablet--maybe with a Bluetooth keyboard for long and rambling posts about technology.
The point being is that, in the typical home, there won't be a PC for each person. That means less PCs sold.
HP's computers (Score:4, Informative)
We don't need a new computer every 2 years (Score:2)
Of course! (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course they did this, they outsourced their soul when they thought their companies were nothing but machines with parts that could be replaced with parts from the cheapest provider. Once they did that they lost their soul and they lost their innovation. Nobody had a desire to take pride in their company anymore knowing that they could well be the next to replaced with someone in India next.
It was the rank and file of the old HP, Dell, Compaq etc that were so damn innovative that built the industry. Upper management came along and thought they could outsource them and still get the same results, failing to see how people would no longer /care/. People who are focused on surviving simply don't give a damn and the next thing you know companies like Acer and Samsung rise from being providers to the giants to the next giants themselves.
Here's the thing, if they do the same thing the American companies did, they too will fall and someone else will take their place. Seriously, can anyone ever give me a single example of where outsourcing actually worked out in the long term for someone other than the vendor?
Only in the world of public companies (Score:5, Insightful)
Both Dell [yahoo.com] and HP [yahoo.com] are making billions. They mostly cater to the business sector. I mean sure Apple [yahoo.com] has a 25% profit margin, which is insanely high for a hardware company. Most of that is from iPhone and iPad, and those items come and go based on the whims of consumer taste. 10 years, 20 years is a long time in the computer industry; companies rise and fall during those times. Anything can happen. 15 years ago, Apple was nearly bankrupt, and now they're the most valuable company by market cap. IBM was taking massive losses nearly 20 years ago, now they're the 3rd largest tech company. In the meantime, Compaq is gone, DEC is gone, Wang is gone, etc. HP and Dell have been reinventing themselves, and they're closer to what IBM looks like rather than Apple.
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?
Agilent (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
That innovative part of HP was spun off into Agilent years ago. The part of HP that was left behind from the spin-off was just an ordinary PC and printer company.
Not everybody wants an iPhone. (Score:3)
. In fact, there are plenty of people who detest Apple and everything they represent. HP used to make quality equipment, then went on a serious crash. HP doesn't need this so-called 'innovation', it needs to make quality equipment with good support. Since this is in such short supply, they should eventually reap the rewards. They need to become the type of company that Warren Buffet would invest in.
Brought to you by offshoring (Score:5, Informative)
Luddites, stop posting (Score:5, Insightful)
Luddites obviously don't want a PC anymore, and I don't disagree with them. When a tablet or smartphone gives them all the functionality they required, such as the ability to tweet, change their Facebook status, and play Angry Birds, then there is no reason for the average consumer to require a PC today. So all those claiming the PC is dead, long live the phone/tablet, your voices have been heard a million-fold.
PC (or Mac) is still a very much required product for content CREATORS, you know, those people that make Facebook, Twitter and Angry Birds. You can't make apps on the iPad or iPhone, you can't make apps on an Android phone or tablet, and can't create app on a Windows Phone.
I think the PC market IS being rebooted, in the form factor of a hybrid tablet. While Luddites will need nothing more then a Windows RT tablet, the rest of us that develop and create content could easily see the old PC shoebox form factor being replaced by a Windows Pro tablet. Honestly the spec's of the Surface Pro exceed what I use for work to develop on and I am sure that there will emerge a new generation of Pro tablets with i7's and all kinds of fast multi-core CPU's and gobs or RAM that will essentially replace shoebox and laptop computers. As much as Apple has laughed at a tablet/PC hybrid, I think Apple is very scared of a market of competitive devices where content can both be consumed AND generated. A device that allows "enterprise" to easily gravitate towards a new tablet form factor running Windows is Apple's biggest nightmare, and its about to come true in a few months.
So, I won't rule Dell and HP out of the game yet, but if those companies are not ready to release a Windows 8 Tablet (both Luddite loving and Geek loving variants). then you should rule them out for being willfully stupid to recognize and adapt to market trends.
For me, a PC is anything that can be used to develop content on. While the average consumer needs nothing more then a device that beeps when it receives a tweet and some sadistic joke of an on-screen keyboard, there is still a large and strong market of people needing a product that can MAKE content.
What ifs (Score:3)
You may say I'm a dreamer...
But I'm not the only one...
Take my hand and join us...
And the world will live, will live as one
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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
And still, both are doing gangbusters compared to Yahoo, and RIM, and Nokia... "technology's most trouble company" my ass.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dell were cooking books (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called outsourcing, contracting out all the work to cheap off shore manufacturers called, ODMs, Other Device Manufacturers. These euphemistically defined companies actually made the computers right down to the badges of other companies names on those computers. The greed of psychopathic corporate executives to earn greater bonuses by reducing current cost regardless of the inevitably consequences. Those consequences being the creation of a whole series of new companies with the skill set of the actual manufacturing and distribution of computers for whom the 'Name Brands" other nothing other than a profit consuming overhead. Companies like ASUS and ACER and even Samsung.
Basically the ODM's ahve matured and are actively working to cut out the profit consuming middle man. Things are only going to get much worse for the 'Name Brands' as a bunch of companies out of China start looking to go direct. Why should they take pennies when companies like Apple cream the dollars, it is inevitable the price squeeze will happen and the badge companies will all die unless the start buying up the the future competing direct selling manufacturers they created.
Re:Dell were cooking books (Score:4, Insightful)
I am the tech guy for my large family. I am totally sick of them buying various computers, dell, HP, acer, or whatnot and my being expected to pull their asses out of the fire when the bloated pile of crap blows up. I am one inch from throwing them across the room when I go to hit shift and keep hitting the stupid \| button that makes up half of the shift key on most crap computers these days. Then it takes hours to remove all the norton AV trials and whatnot. If I try to wipe the OS it is near impossible to find a matching version of Windows OS that will match their product key. Basically I haven't used windows much since XP so I hate supporting vista and windows 7, I suspect that I will just shrug when presented with a windows 8 problem. I'll just fearmonger them with suggestions that windows 8 is spying on them.
For all the complaints I have about mac (Cost being #1) there is no bloatware and with a timecapsule set up, restores, and upgrades are brain dead. Worst support issue I've had with a mac in a long time was iCloud being a royal pain in the ass.
In a few cases I have managed to get them over to a good desktop running Linux and the support issues have been completely limited to printer drivers. I suspect that some of these machines might still be running 8 years from now.
What I don't understand is why there isn't somebody trying to sell me a good Raspberry Pi: Say 1.5Ghz dual core, 2-4G ram, 16G SSD, OK video (enough for HD Youtube), and wireless. Say $99. A tiny little box that looks like a USB hub. I would leave a trail of those in family houses. That computer would take the world by storm. If the SSD was removable then for support all I would need is the SD card.
Re:fire the board. (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember when Carli Fiorina was in charge at HP? She seemed to have a good vision
I'm sorry, what? I had to re-read that a few times... Really? Carli Fiorina had a good vision for HP? Wow. Simply wow...
Re:fire the board. (Score:5, Funny)
Using company money to buy a yacht is actually a really good idea. Definitely what I would do if I had that job.
Re:fire the board. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:fire the board. (Score:5, Insightful)
I was at Lucent when Carly was there - I thought she was a waste of space then, and I was shocked when HP hired her. HP was "Bill and Dave's company" - by and for engineers making great products. It was obvious to this outsider Carly was the wrong choice - I had no idea how right I was. A friend in HP Sales confirmed there was dancing in the hallways the day the HP board finally canned Carly. The only good part of HP that is left isn't HP at all - Agilent Technologies is as close as we have to what Bill and Dave started.
Re:fire the board. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:fire the board. (Score:5, Funny)
I assumed he meant Carli's eyesight wasn't bad. Nothing else made sense.
Re:fire the board. (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe he meant her eyesight was 20/20.
Re: (Score:3)
"Vision" means that she was seeing things that other people could not see. Possibly related to business insight or possibly related to medication, but I'm not the one to say which it was.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:fire the board. (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, please... Fuck you and anyone who can't handle accurate criticism of anyone other than lily white males.
So glue a cock to her and paste on some chest hair. She represents the worst of the American business mindset. Go read what she helped do to Bell Labs and Lucent.
Re:fire the board. (Score:5, Informative)
Ah, yes, Carly "I never met a well compensated, high tax revenue generating engineering position I didn't want to ship overseas" Fiorina.
How is the old bat doing? That senate run didn't work out so well, did it? Wonder if she spent any of her $20 million severance package on it.
As bad as she was at HP, many any gods or goddesses that exist NEVER forgive her for the destruction of Bell Labs/Lucent. She was part of the team that brought about the end of pure research at Bell: research that once led to transistor, the silicon microprocessor, fiber optics, communication satellites, Unix and C++. Oh, and it was a Bell antenna allowed humanity first heard the echos of the Big Bang.. Bell Labs was a key component in the USA's post WWII tech boom.
So, basically, fuck that cunt.
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.
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:fire the board. (Score:5, Funny)
Dude I don't know what you have against shit and paper bags, but you're just being cruel comparing them to carli.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:fire the board. (Score:5, Informative)
It's all in how you phrase your responses; I almost always have karma overload, and yet I do the odd bit of trolling, and tend to disagree with people when I actually disagree.
There's a difference between bowing to the popular view and alienating those who hold the view.
You make a lot of very good points, but waste them by making a lot of unsubstantiated accusations in the same posts. When you then make a few bad poitns and make unsubstantiated accusations in the same posts, people flag you as a troll, and will treat you as such even when you say something valid using the same tone.
People don't like being called idiots, and they don't like those they admire being called idiots. If you instead follow the socratic method, ask more questions, question people's logic instead of their humanity, you'll find you get +5 instead of -1.
Has someone written a "How to have karma without being a whore" FAQ? If not, they should.
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What device did you type this long, goofy post out on?
Re:The PC is Dying (Score:5, Insightful)
It's only dying as a consumer appliance. Professionals and power users will always need a powerful general-purpose computer with a real input device (a.k.a. keyboard) and a screen bigger than 10 inches.
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, Insightful)
Nice idle cores you got there Mr. Power User. I'm so impressed.
I'd rate power based more on what you get done. If I can produce more with less then I am the higher powered user.
Also note: A real power user will understand when more cores will do him/her very little good and will keep his/her old system as there is no benefit in system churn.
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.
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Remember the older Unix workstations, costing maybe $10,000 in today's dollars. Currently we've got super fast office workstations for under $1000; tons of RAM, tons of storage, fast networking. If the PC prices go up they'll still be purchased because there is still a need. Only they won't be handed out to each and every employee as they are now, probably a lot of workers could get by with just a dockable tablet instead.
I was in some labs in late 80s where we had several variety of unix workstations, li
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Dell sold just under 12 million computers - they go as cheap as $300 or so. Apple sold just over 5 million computers (Macs - not iPhones or iPads or iPods), and they start at $700. Seems to me Dell would do better to just drop the cheap crap and raise their margins. I think their pursuit of marketshare above all else is hurting them. If Apple can sell 5 million expensive computers with no low-end offering at all, then why can't Dell?
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Apple spends a ton on R&D. Apple has a reputation for quality and quality of service. Apple buys part in advance.
There is a good reason the average PC is $515 and the average Apple $1400. On the other hand there is room for $800 PCs. And companies like Vizio http://www.vizio.com/computing/ [vizio.com] are forgoing making crap to focus on the $800 market.
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Warning: anecdote ahead, may not indicative of a larger trend.
Every three years at my company, we invite the major PC OEMs to make a bid for our desktop and laptop purchasing contracts for what our standard models will be. Last time around, HP, Dell, and Lenovo participated. The results boiled down as follows:
Lenovo - more performance, slightly higher price than Dell, average vendor relationship and contact on ThinkPads we were already buying.
HP - average performance, slightly cheaper price than Dell, gre
Re:The PC is Dying (Score:5, Insightful)
No one is under the impression they can't be docked. The issue is performance. They can't even match low-end machines from 5 years ago, let alone any modern desktop machine from this century.
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A screen 10in doesn't make a workstation (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, are you under the impression that tablets/phones wont be able to dock up to a real 'workstation' with a screen that is > 10 inches???
Sure they will. And what you'll get is an expensive, absurdly underpowered, restrictive computer that specialises in running the kind of software you get if you spend $2 in an app store.
The current generation of mobile devices is doing very well because they serve a vast and previously bizarrely undersupported market: people who want a portable device for easy information consumption. If you're not doing any sort of content creation, significant computation, or catering to more than one user at once, you can get by with the kind of processing power you find in an iPad or a Galaxy S3. If you're not expecting much in the way of interaction, you can get by with a touchscreen and very simple user interface concepts. For the market where they are wildly successful, the current crop of smartphones and tablets are excellent devices, balancing low power consumption, ease of use, portability, and "wow factor" against a bunch of downsides that their users simply don't care about.
On the other hand, as soon as you do need to do anything creative, or do any real computation, or scale up to multiple users, or support non-trivial interactions, the current crop of mobile devices suck. All those downsides that didn't matter before are now dominant, and the high price, low power and almost zero flexibility are fatal liabilities. And no matter how much window dressing you lay out, they always will be, because it's not the job these devices were designed for.
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On the other hand, as soon as you do need to do anything creative, or do any real computation, or scale up to multiple users, or support non-trivial interactions, the current crop of mobile devices suck. All those downsides that didn't matter before are now dominant, and the high price, low power and almost zero flexibility are fatal liabilities. And no matter how much window dressing you lay out, they always will be, because it's not the job these devices were designed for.
I don't buy this in a lot of cases. How much 'computational power' (or storage) does it take to write a book (even "War and Peace" :-)? Or to write an App? I could easily write a book using a tablet with a keyboard, and lots and lots of powerful applications were done with a lot less computational power than the average iPad now has (including the Unix and Linux kernels...)
There certainly are creative endeavors (e.g. signal processing, including still image, video or sound editing, or computational bio
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Even writing up some marketing literature needs something better. You want a large high rez monitor and detailed control over graphical images. A tablet might make a good input device for parts of this application though but not all of it. On the business side of things I can't really imagine using a tablet for a large shared spreadsheet. These things aren't about lots of computational power but in being able to see and change lots of data at once.
Re:A screen 10in doesn't make a workstation (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, sure, I'm capable of compiling one of my projects on a single core 400Mhz CPU, with 256MB of RAM, but takes 25 minutes. On my quad core desktop, it takes 5-8 seconds, in the process kicking up 15GB of RAM-dust.
Also, try managing 60k SLOC, assorted (local) documentation, and standard/API (remote) documentation on a 10" screen.
There's a reason why pressing alt-tab works: It enables me to switch from one screen to another without having to refocus my eyes. Which means that when I'm comparing documentation to my code, I can instantly see implementation and reference, with minimum eye movement.
Try doing the same on a tablet where I have to double click a central button, then find the icon of the app, move my hand to click the button, then re-position my hands on the keyboard, and finally try and find the area of the screen I was focused on.
By the same logic you're applying, anyone currently walking around with an iPod should just walk around with a discman and a bunch of CDs, on the go. The sound quality is the same, and you can buy batteries anywhere. If you're an iPhone user, stop being so pretentious and just use payphones.
Maybe your usage fits a tablet, but please, I'm fine with paying premium prices to keep my hands on a real keyboard, attached to a real computer. I'm not telling you "you're wrong" for being fine with paying premium for a glorified iPod, so please, do return the courtesy. It's this kind of bullshit PHB-wannabe[1] arguments that have provided us with the abortions that are unity, gnome3, metro and the app store.
[1]: "I don't understand what I'm talking about, yet I'll talk out of my ass just to seem knowledgeable." Your boss is probably like this, which is fine; we're there to manage our bosses.
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I've done -a lot of software development- on a 24x80 screen running EMACS, including code and documentation.
So have I, but today I use multiple monitors, and the main one can easily tile four areas all significantly bigger than that in an IDE. In the background, that IDE is analysing many thousands of lines of code in real time in order to present me with relevant information as I navigate through the code, and checking for the kinds of dumb mistakes we used to make all the time. Of course, I'm also working in programming languages where some of those dumb mistakes aren't even possible any more, which is achievab
Re:The PC is Dying (Score:5, Informative)
Since I use Povray [povray.org] for image rendering, I decided to install Debian 7 on the two ARM devices I have at my disposal (Samsumg Galaxy S II and Barnes & Noble Nook Color), compiled Povray 3.6 (3.7 is a bit difficult to compile even though it's multithreaded, but 3.6 is good enough to see what the processor can do) and see what the real results are:
Debian 7.0(armhf), gcc 4.6, -mhard-float -mcpu=cortex-a9 -march=armv7 -mthumb
-mfpu=neon -funsafe-math-optimizations
Parse Time: 0 hours 0 minutes 4 seconds (4 seconds)
Photon Time: 0 hours 1 minutes 30 seconds (90 seconds)
Render Time: 1 hours 20 minutes 38 seconds (4838 seconds)
Total Time: 1 hours 22 minutes 12 seconds (4932 seconds)
Debian 6.0 (armel), gcc 4.4, -mfloat-abi=softfp -mcpu=cortex-a9
Parse Time: 0 hours 0 minutes 4 seconds (4 seconds)
Photon Time: 0 hours 1 minutes 43 seconds (103 seconds)
Render Time: 1 hours 49 minutes 59 seconds (6599 seconds)
Total Time: 1 hours 51 minutes 46 seconds (6706 seconds)
OMAP 3621 @ 1.2 GHz (B&N Nook Color)
Debian 7.0 (armhf), gcc 4.6, -mhard-float -mcpu=cortex-a8
-mfpu=neon -funsafe-math-optimizations
Parse Time: 0 hours 0 minutes 9 seconds (9 seconds)
Photon Time: 0 hours 6 minutes 14 seconds (374 seconds)
Render Time: 5 hours 57 minutes 9 seconds (21429 seconds)
Total Time: 6 hours 3 minutes 32 seconds (21812 seconds)
Here are some results compared to other processors I have:
Ordered by pps:
Core i5 2400S (2.5 GHz): 235.177 pps ; 94.07 pps/GHz
Athlon II x4 (2.8 GHz): 179.82 pps ; 64.22 pps/GHz
Celeron 220 (1.2 GHz): 81.15 pps ; 67.62 pps/GHz
Pentium 4m (1.5 GHz): 36.24 pps ; 24.16 pps/GHz
Exynos 4210 (1.2 GHz): 29.90 pps ; 24.91 pps/GHz (-mfloat-abi=hard)
Atom N270 (1.6 GHz): 28.96 pps ; 18.10 pps/GHz
Exynos 4210 (1.2 GHz): 21.99 pps ; 18.32 pps/GHz (-mfloat-abi=softfp)
PowerPC 750 (700 MHz): 20.47 pps ; 29.25 pps/GHz
Pentium !!! (450 MHz): 12.43 pps ; 27.62 pps/GHz
OMAP 3621 (1.2 GHz): 6.76 pps ; 5.63 pps/GHz
Exynos is Cortex A9 and OMAP 3621 is Cortex A8. Cortex A9 is about on par with a Pentium 4. Cortex A8 can't even beat a a 14 year old Pentium !!! Currently there's only one Cortex A15 product that's available, but I don't have it.
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There is still a pretty big server market. I suspect power users will go back to buying "server" class hardware, workstations. I.E. a workstation with a few changes (like a better video card) reconfigured for power users. Its hard to imagine the market not being big enough to support the server -> workstation conversion market even if there were only a few million power user workstations sold per year.
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Re:The PC is Dying (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The PC is Dying (Score:5, Insightful)
(Replying to Original Commenter's comment): Yeah, HP sucks, but so does Dell and Acer and Gateway and everyone else who makes PCs.
(Replying to both comments, but mostly AC's): I think you over estimate the demise of the PC and also don't understand what they are used for in Enterprise. I agree that, in general, the PC business is declining. I think that will result in a lot of consolidation, likely into segments where the consumer PC business will consist entirely of low end PCs and the enterprise business will consist mostly of high end servers. And HP's bread and butter is in the Enterprise, so I suspect that a company like Acer or Dell will end up "owning" that business and HP will "own" the Enterprise business. Everyone else will go out of business.
Speaking of enterprise, there are a LOT of applications running on PCs in the enterprise. Salespeople run client / contact management software, account managers run portfolio analysis software, HR runs tons of HR-related apps, there's a myriad of software running on desktops in the enterprise and upgrades are required all the time. I don't see PeopleSoft being replaced by an iPhone app anytime soon.
Re:The PC is Dying (Score:5, Insightful)
The PC market is in decline, but it is not dying and will not die in the near future. The main reason for sluggish PC sales is that the technology has reached a peak at the moment (or you might say it has finally matured) and consumers no longer need to buy a new system every couple of years just to keep up. Since the dawn of the PC era users have had to constantly upgrade their hardware to run that new OS, that new game, or that new multimedia application. That time has ended. A decent system bought 5 years ago will still run everything it needs to.
True, the rise of tablets and smartphones also gnaw at the PC market, because some people only want to check their email and log onto Facebook, but the power, flexibility and usability of the PC will remain indispensable for a large amount of users and professionals.
Re:The PC is Dying (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop that. Please, I beg of you. Stop saying PC dying. I have yet to see a tablet that can handle the Autocad/Mastercam/Catia drawings that we work with. I don't want to be stuck having to build this shit from scratch, or purchase a server just so people can use the software they have to use every day.
Before you all go off on 'virtual server/blahblah' I'm telling you, we have tried, and nothing beats having each user have a PC at their desk using the software to do their work. Just because we can make the PC last 5 years before having to replace it, doesn't mean that the PC is dying.
Keep your stupid investor hands off the PC market. Seriously. - Love, Aerospace Manufacturing
Re:The PC is Dying (Score:5, Funny)
But thin clients are the future! Stop being old and crusty and resistant to change even if its change for change's sake and for the worse.
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Re:The PC is Dying (Score:5, Insightful)
The PC isn't dying. It is, however, going to undergo a dramatic shrinkage as a lot of people realize that they really only ever consume data. In that area, tablets and phones are going to replace PCs.
PCs will be the exclusive domain of the nerds and content creators. Just like it was in the beginning.
Re:The PC is Dying (Score:5, Interesting)
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HP is Nokia; Dell is RIM.
Re:HP Sux (Score:5, Interesting)
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Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US-$5.00 charge
FTFY. Send it in quarters, please.