HP to spin off PC Business

[R K]

Along with their earnings HP announced initial phase of discovery on how to spin off their PC division. With the recent 1.6 billion dollar purchase of Palm OS, they are going to take a different direction.



Should be interesting to see how this pans out. They will no doubt keep their Server and San business as it's some of the most reliable networking equipment in the industry.



http://h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=71087&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1598003&highlight=

 

[supraman]

They killed their tablet product too

 

[R K]

Yup. I've never sold a ton of tablets. Probably sell 1000 desktops a month though. And a couple hundred notebooks. Elite Books are very nice. The 2540p I'm using right now is a phenominal machine.

 

[BiscuitintheBasket]

Strong rumor that HP will manufacture the tablets that Microsoft will be selling with the Window 8 release.



Honestly I am not to suprised the PC side is going to be spun off. The sever space pulls in most of their profit. Plus they have hinted at this for several years. I think it gives them the option to rebrand a bit.

 

[BiscuitintheBasket]

The Palm purchase was more for the patents and Be technology that Palm did shit with, IMO.

 

[MassHavoc]

I just purchased a 32 gig touchpad for $130 bucks from HP on friday cause they are dumping them at bargin prices, I'm so pumped. Sure they won't have much in the way of support, but WebOS is honestly better than anything else out there. I loved it on my Pre more than my android, and iOS is god aweful. Windows, I never had but heard it sucked from.... well everywhere. At that price for a really nice tablet I couldn't pass up even if they are dumping the line, at the very least I can browse the web on my couch with it. And fucking moderate you bastards.



My only regret is not getting the 16 gig for $99 but they were sold out, if I had waited I probably could have got one off amazon or something. They are all somewhat tricky to get at the reduced price now, but if you are patient and follow directions, there are still some to be had.

 

[R K]

I just purchased a 32 gig touchpad for $130 bucks from HP on friday cause they are dumping them at bargin prices, I'm so pumped. Sure they won't have much in the way of support, but WebOS is honestly better than anything else out there. I loved it on my Pre more than my android, and iOS is god aweful. Windows, I never had but heard it sucked from.... well everywhere. At that price for a really nice tablet I couldn't pass up even if they are dumping the line, at the very least I can browse the web on my couch with it. And fucking moderate you bastards.



My only regret is not getting the 16 gig for $99 but they were sold out, if I had waited I probably could have got one off amazon or something. They are all somewhat tricky to get at the reduced price now, but if you are patient and follow directions, there are still some to be had.

Not sure if you'll find them. They cleared all their stock direct. Although there may be some that pop up at Amazon or best buy. Most distributors like Ingram, Techdata, Synnex still have them on back order.



This decision could really bite HP in the ass, but I'm sure their SAN/Server product will keep them going just fine. Even so Moody's down graded them.

 

[MassHavoc]

Well I found 1 I mean I have 1 my regret is that I got 32 instead of the 16 which I think is going to be more than enough. They've been selling them all over the place all weekend but I bought mine on friday. So my regret was that I bought a 32 instead of a 16. That's all I was trying to say I'm not I'm glad I got 1 of them though

 

[BiscuitintheBasket]

A decent article about the deal: http://money.cnn.com....htm?hpt=te_bn7



Amazing that a company would dump a $40 billion business, but I still stick with the spinning it off to protect HP from the incoming decreases in PC sales.





Mass, having played with the Window 8 demo on a tablet (that looked very much like the touchpad), and phone; I can say it is an impressive product and far exceeds the android I have in terms of OS. However that OS will not be out until late 2012. I agree that WebOS was amazing, but it should be since it was written by the BeOS guys which was one of the, if not still, the best multitasking OS's ever. What they were doing in the early 90's was not matched by Microsoft, Apple, or any Linux until the mid 2000's.

 

[bri]

My co-worker bought one over the weekend for $149. I would love to have one, but just can't swing it right now, but I hope the people that can afford them take advantage of the deal.

 

[MassHavoc]

I knew you were the other palm pre owner on the site but I didn't want to speak for you so I'm glad you piped up. I find the article very interesting in that they're selling the touch pad line as well is the pc line which is really what they say is killing the pc's. If you're getting out of the pc business because of tablets why would you drop your tablet line as well expecially with such a solid web o s to build

 

[JOVE23]

Seems that Oracle might try a hostile takeover of HP.

 

[BiscuitintheBasket]

Seems that Oracle might try a hostile takeover of HP.

Oracle to buy\takeover HP has been a rumor since at least last year. Would be none to surprising is they made a play for HP w/o the PC division as that would put them at a similar level as IBM for the spaces they compete in. Oracle does have the money to assume control once the PC division is spun off.

 

[winos5]

I wonder how this will affect support, updates ect... for my HP PC at home.

 

[R K]

I wonder how this will affect support, updates ect... for my HP PC at home.

Presario/Pavillion? Shouldn't really effect it. If you have a carepack on a business line there should be no change for the immediate future. I seriously doubt Oracle will purchase whats left. Then again who knows.



There is a coference call with the VP in about an hour. I'm not going to listen as I have a con call on something else going on.



remember IBM spun their PC model off to China, which is now Lenovo. The Thinkpads have basically remained the same for the most part. This is a very similar move by HP IMO.



Dave have you guys fully migrated to W7 64bit or are you still using some XP? I know you aren't using Vista which was a giant fubar from MS as it was just Melinium Edition, renamed. Failed the first time so they thought they'd try it again.



I assume you guys do SA so are getting the updates or go to 8 with no new purchase under your EA.

 

[BiscuitintheBasket]

Presario/Pavillion? Shouldn't really effect it. If you have a carepack on a business line there should be no change for the immediate future. I seriously doubt Oracle will purchase whats left. Then again who knows.



There is a coference call with the VP in about an hour. I'm not going to listen as I have a con call on something else going on.



remember IBM spun their PC model off to China, which is now Lenovo. The Thinkpads have basically remained the same for the most part. This is a very similar move by HP IMO.



Dave have you guys fully migrated to W7 64bit or are you still using some XP? I know you aren't using Vista which was a giant fubar from MS as it was just Melinium Edition, renamed. Failed the first time so they thought they'd try it again.



I assume you guys do SA so are getting the updates or go to 8 with no new purchase under your EA.

We are in the midst of the Windows 7 migration (4000+ computers and lots of interesting levels of understanding). We are just over 50% completed, and should be completed Jan\Feb 2012 since we have to work with those academic schedules as well.



We did not go 64-bit due to old drivers and old software we still have to deal with that would not work. Thought about mixed, but when there was no performance increase between 64-bit and 32-bit with our computers (most at or under that 4GB of RAM to make a difference), we just decided to keep it at 32-bit for the mass rollout. We will work back later on between the refresh cycle and computers already with more that 4GB of RAM. Job protection, yea!



The good news is that I have this totally automated. Image is automated and the software is packaged and pushable. Basically just run the job overnight which takes about 1.5-2 hrs per computer even with 30+ going at once. The majority of the time is working with the users to get them acclimated to the change and ensure no other issues. Completely painless, IMO.





Yea we buy SA. I know we can go cheaper, but why when SA really is not that much more for us. Then again with our current software license manage I am not so sure....he is a former software sales guy and interestingly gets roped by so many of the sales pitches and either over buys or under buys when unsure. Even funnier that my office is 10 seconds away and he could just ask. Then again, I have heard he was fired from his previous sales job for poor sales and trying to steal other peoples clients.

 

[R K]

Yea I figured you'd be pushing it out at night and not surprised with the 32bit over 64bit. I am surprised that 8 will come out so quickly after 7, considering all the fubar they put people through from XP to Vista, which just completely sucked and caused the MFR's to create dual boot for the entire life of Vista. Was nice to see the IT community to basically tell MS to F Off they just didn't like the platform. Again, considering they did it with ME as well.



You guys must have a Select and EA out there. Who or where do they go for that? As far as the MS goes it's pretty straight forward with that many machines. Select and EA, with SA going forward.

 

[BiscuitintheBasket]

From what I have played with with Windows 8, it is going to be more of an improvement on the mobile side. So I am sure that Microsoft is looking to stay with the mobile curve. The PC side of Win 8 is very similar to 7 with the 8 "effects". I think this is going to be mostly a skip on the PC side.



Select for servers, Campus Agreement for staff\lab computers, Academic Alliance for faculty\student take-home or non-credit classes. And SA as the cherry on top!

 

[R K]

You should get me on the hardware vendor list! I'm still getting used to 7 myself. As a user I like some of the applications and some are still a little awkward especially with dual screens.



Most of my clients just don't have the robust machines to go all 64bit. Infact I just sold 8 Lattitudes and they mistakenly shipped them with 64bit and it took 3 days to have the 32 sent out so the customer could re boot.



As a side note depending on where the HP spin off ends up it should help Dells PC Business. Short term and possibly long term. They've got to be fairly happy about the move by HP.

 

[MassHavoc]

My 32GB Touchpad got delivered today, can't wait to play with it. So glad I got in on it early after seeing all the problems that eveyrone is having getting them. I ordered it late friday and it's here within a week. Not bad, not amazon fast, but understandable with the overload.