A mixed bag of news for HP today: it has posted Q2 sales that have just edged out analyst expectations, but it has also confirmed 27,000 job cuts that should save the company between $3 billion and $3.5 billion by 2014.
The company is a tech behemoth: it employs 350,000 people worldwide, before these cuts were announced. This means the cuts are equivalent to about 8 percent of its workforce.
→ Read More
Remember when researchers said a security vulnerability could allow hackers to remotely take over Hewlett-Packard LaserJet printers and even cause them to burst into flames? Fun times, for sure.
Of course, HP was quick to point out that the researchers had it all wrong, lamented the “sensational and inaccurate reporting” surrounding the supposed security flaw and said not a single customer had reported any instances of unauthorized access to its LaserJet printers. → Read More
Hewlett-Packard has acquired a German company called HIFLEX, based in Aachen, which develops software that helps companies in the print and media industries automate their business and technical processes.
HIFLEX products include HIFLEX MIS (Management Information System), HIFLEX Print Support and an open web-to-print system dubbed HIFLEX Webshop. → Read More
Hewlett-Packard has acquired a German company called HIFLEX, based in Aachen, which develops software that helps companies in the print and media industries automate their business and technical processes.
HIFLEX products include HIFLEX MIS (Management Information System), HIFLEX Print Support and an open web-to-print system dubbed HIFLEX Webshop.
Read more at TechCrunch Europe. → Read More
Hewlett-Packard has announced that former Verizon Wireless SVP and CIO John Hinshaw has agreed to join the company to serve as its executive vice president of Global Technology and Business Processes, a newly created position.
Hinshaw most recently worked at The Boeing Company, where he was vice president and general manager of Boeing Information Solutions. His job there involved delivering information solutions to the U.S. government, among other tasks.
He will report to recently appointed HP chief exec Meg Whitman. → Read More
As I write this, I’m sitting in a cafe. Around me, there are five people on laptops — four of them are MacBooks. Four other people are using tablets — all four are iPads. Welcome to the Post-PC world.
That phrase was one of the first things that jumped to my mind today when I heard the news that HP was not only killing off their TouchPad and Pre webOS-based products, but also trying to spin-off their PC business. The largest PC business in the world, mind you.
And HP’s statements during their earnings call today only further reaffirmed the idea of the Post-PC world. → Read More
According to a study conducted by Minnesota-based research firm Vocal Laboratories (aka Vocalabs), Apple’s lead in tech support quality is slipping, while consumer satisfaction scores for HP are improving.
Vocalabs interviews people by telephone right after a customer service experience, and for this study completed 4,161 surveys between May 2008 and June 2011. → Read More
The world has been waiting for an official Facebook tablet app, and waiting, and waiting. But that app may not appear on the iPad first (although Facebook is working on an iPad app for sure). Instead, Facebook’s first tablet app will appear on the HP TouchPad, which comes out this Friday and runs the WebOS it bought with Palm. Unless the iPad app also launches this week, the TouchPad will become the first tablet with an official Facebook app. Given the tension between Apple and Facebook, a concurrent launch on the iPad seems unlikely. Update: Facebook has reached out to clarify that “this app was not built by Facebook but by HP.”
How do I know? I got my hands on some screenshots of the Facebook app for the TouchPad. You can see them here. But what I wonder is if this is also what the app will look like on the iPad. All I can say for sure is that these pics are from Facebook’s tablet app running on WebOS. → Read More
If you look at how Apple fares on the public markets today, compared to other tech powerhouses, you’ll notice that the Cupertino computer giant is currently valued at roughly $301 billion, which is close to the sum of the market cap of three of its closest rivals: Microsoft (~$200.3 billion), Hewlett-Packard (~$72.8 billion) and Dell (~$29.3 billion).
Market cap is of course just one metric – and arguably not even the best one – to make comparisons between companies. It is, nevertheless, a most excellent trend barometer and a simple way to compare valuations. → Read More
It’s big screen week on Fly or Die. This week, John Biggs and I take a look at the HP Touchsmart All-in-One PC, a 14-inch Toshiba portable monitor, and the new Businessweek iPad app. As usual, a surprise guest joins us to defend his company’s product decisions.
HP has been trying to bring touch computing to desktop PCs with its Touchsmart line. The problem has always been that raising your hands to manipulate a touchscreen in front of you from a sitting position is unnatural, uncomfortable, and tiring. To address this issue, the new all-in-one Touchsmart reclines so that you can go from regular keyboard mode to surface computing mode. It is an improvement from past efforts, but to me it’s a mistake to have a device with dual modes. You are going to pick one—keyboard/mouse or touch—and ignore the other. Does everything really need to be a touchscreen? → Read More
Some of you (hopefully all of you) have been following the UCSF drive to build a children’t hospital in San Francisco. We are enthusiastically supporting the project, as are countless other businesses, blogs and individuals. Marc and Lynne Benioff, in a hugely generous moment, gave $100 million to help build the hospital. Zynga has also gotten in the mix and is likely to contribute a substantial amount as well through the sale of virtual candy canes.
And now Hewlett Packard is supporting the project. Which we applaud.
Like us, they’re also matching donations. And like us, they’ve capped it at $10,000. Wait, what? → Read More
California politics blog Calitics has unearthed some interesting data about the $1 million in funding behind the recent round of television ads against Democratic attorney general candidate Kamala Harris. Digging deeper into the contribution history of the Republican State Leadership committee, the Karl Rove-backed group behind the ad campaign, reveals contributions from four top Silicon Valley tech firms. → Read More
Hewlett-Packard this morning announced that it has now completed the acquisition of security and compliance management company ArcSight for $43.50 per share, or an enterprise value of $1.5 billion.
ArcSight helps protect enterprises and government agencies against cyber threats and other risks by providing complete visibility and insights into their IT infrastructure across all users, networks, datacenters and applications. → Read More
During my brief tour of the HP workstation lab, I was impressed by HP’s engineering history as well as the rigor they apply to testing and integrating hardware components. But as a customer, I know that what happens after the sale is just as important as what happens before the sale. You can have the best engineering discipline in the world, but your products will still wear out, or break, or experience weird and inexplicable failures. Long-term support for a significant financial investment like a workstation is a major consideration for customers. → Read More
When you think about it, building a computer isn’t that difficult today. Intel publishes reference designs for their motherboards, so a lot of the work has been done for you already. But to build a computer that you can guarantee will work in a number of potentially hostile environments requires a deep understanding of computers and electronics, but also requires the resources to test and monitor that computer’s reactions to various inputs. At the HP Workstation Lab in Ft. Collins, CO, every new workstation goes through a battery of rigorous tests to ensure it lives up to the HP name. → Read More
I recently had the pleasure of touring the HP Workstation facility in Ft. Collins, Colorado. I was there with a number of other journalists, both web and print, for a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into the construction and support of HP workstations. The word “workstation” is often used interchangeably with the word “computer” in a lot of general conversations, and this is more true than ever with the hegemony of the x86 architecture; but the word “workstation” here describes a very specific class of computer. This is not your day-to-day office desktop for email and word processing. This is not your tricked out gaming rig for eeking out every last frame from World of Warcraft. Workstations are high-performance systems used for intense computing operations: CAD/CAM, medical imaging, scientific modeling, and computer animation, to name just a few. Workstations are used by organizations that rely heavily on their computing power, and for whom systems failure can result in catastrophic loss of productivity. → Read More
One thing Hewlett Packard has done well over the last five years since CEO Carly Fiorina stepped down: make money. A lot of that is thanks to Todd Bradley, EVP Personal Systems Group. If you think you’ve seen him before, you probably have. Bradley often speaks at tech events, and he’s the only HP exec I’ve ever seen out in the tech community. At a recent Fortune Brainstorm event in Colorado he was handing out Palm Pre’s to attendees, and was the most popular guy in the room.
He was former CEO Mark Hurd’s first high level hire in 2005. Bradley runs the computer group – personal computers, mobile devices, technical workstations, personal storage solutions and Internet services. He grew revenue in his group to $42 billion and took the no. 1 computer manufacturer spot from Dell. Profitability in his group has grown 300% on his watch.
He’s also not shy about taking risks. His acquisition of Palm earlier this year put HP in the game at least with a mobile/tablet operating system that developers like. That puts them light years ahead of Dell. → Read More
Despite numerous advancements in printer technology, the fundamental failing of almost every consumer printer on the market today is the necessity to install printer drivers. Usually these drivers are accompanied by all manner of essentially junk software that “helpfully” pop up reminders when your printer is out of ink, or out of paper, or whatever. Hewlett Packard is making what appears to be an honest effort to remedy this situation with their new ePrint solution, as featured in the Photosmart D110a. For a hundred bucks you can email documents to your printer, without loading drivers of any sort. → Read More
The bidding war continues.
Dell announced today that 3PAR has accepted its increased offer to acquire the storage leader for $27 per share in cash, or approximately $1.8 billion.
Dell had previously signed an agreement to acquire 3PAR for $18 per share or $1.13 billion, with a provision for matching competing bids.
HP then effectively outbid the company and offered $1.6 billion, but Dell matched that offer yesterday, after which HP made a renewed bid for – you guessed it – $1.8 billion. → Read More
Dell announced this morning that 3PAR has accepted its increased offer to acquire the storage company for $24.30 per share in cash, or approximately $1.6 billion, net of 3PAR’s cash.
Dell had previously signed an agreement to acquire 3PAR for $18 per share, with a provision for matching competing bids.
HP subsequently outbid Dell for the data storage company, offering $24 per share in cash, or also roughly $1.6 billion at the time. Dell and 3PAR have now signed an amendment to the agreement reflecting the new offer price, which brings its bid up to par with HP’s offer. → Read More
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