HP's One-Year Plan (WSJ)

[Eric Smith]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904787404576535211589514334.html

[Geoff Quickfall]

OUCH

[M. Joury]

I particularly like (if like is the right word) in reference to the PC business:

Quote:

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Dumping it is a beautiful absurdity that one analyst, Jayson Noland of Robert W. Baird & Co., described as "like McDonald's getting out of the hamburger business."

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[Namir]

Who said a corporation cannot commit suicide?

[Paul Gaster]

Another ugly article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/27/business/for-seamless-transitions-at-the-top-dont-consult-hewlett-packard.html?_r=4&partner=rss&emc=rss

“I didn’t know there was such a thing as corporate suicide, but now we know that there is,” a former H.P. director, the venture capitalist Tom Perkins, told me this week. “It’s just astonishing.”

[hugh steers]

until quite recently, McDonald's were not in the burger business! at least measured by revenue.

they used to make more money on the real estate, when buying buildings for franchise and leasing them to the franchisee than actually on burgers. weird huh!

it's why they were consistently rated the worst burger.

[Howard Owen]

Scath-ing adj: 1. See link above.

[db (martinez, ca.)]

was cleaning CPUs using alcohol this weekend with a friend from high school (class of '73). He's been in the Silicon Valley computer business for about 35 years. He knows what a Luddite i am and said in passing that sales of laptop and desktop computers (the business as we know it) is about to disappear and be replaced by the tablets and pads. Maybe hp is in on this "secret".

The reason for him saying that was to tell me that in 2 or three years, all the fooling around will be done on those ipad type things (with programs running on the internet) leaving very little real work to be done (ie autocad etc.) - and less sales for - laptops and such. So he said that this generation of what we call computers will be the last "cheap" one. In the next couple of years there will be fewer made, fewer companies, less competition, and twice to three times the price for the next generation of what i am typing this on.

Not sure which direction this post paddled the canoe towards, but there it is.

[Michael de Estrada]

Sounds like your friend needs to take a few classes in economics.

Reminds me of when 30 years ago some bright young manager told me that engineers like me would be replaced with "thinking" computers. He later on lost his job when the company downsized, but I still kept mine. :)

Edited: 29 Aug 2011, 8:34 p.m.