RUMOR: HP getting out of the PC business?

Glad I returned my DV6 and replaced it with a Sager.

 

yeah, I saw this.... the PC owners are probably fine (they can go to microsoft/amd/intel/nvidia for issues), but I am very glad i decided not to get the touchpad....

 

If it was anybody but Dave1812 I would have taken it at face value but I looked it up and it is true. I guess there goes our warrantys at least what Hp calls a warranty.
Hewlett-Packard Co. to end mobile businesses - Yahoo! News

 

Not enough apps for webOS, so I didn't even test drive the touchpad. I bought a Transformer, but took it back due to some issues with 3.2 (slow typing in browser, compass error interrupts other apps, etc). Also the transformer has painfully sharp edges and I couldn't find a silicone sleeve for it anywhere. Maybe a Kal El Transformer with ICS could be in my future.

 

Its probably a bigger issue for folks who bought webos devices. For pc's, the division is most likely going to be around since they are not closing it down (in the short term at least) but rather look to sell or spin it off as a separate business.

I wonder who would be interested in buying the pc business though?

 

Last time I checked, notebooks were a subset of PCs.

 

I'm not surprised about the death of the Touchpad and WebOS, but I'm very surprised that HP is ditching its entire PC operation. Market share remains healthy, just behind Apple, but its clear that profit margins are only a fraction of Apple's.

Honestly, I don't really know what will become of HP or that the situation had become this dire? In a best case scenario, the PC business will be sold off to a Chinese ODM, or in a worst case scenario, it will go a Private Equity which will run it straight into the ground. Hey, maybe Google in the market? Probably not. Paying $12.5 billion probably burnt through Google's acquisition budget for this week.

A lot of people are going to perform a postmortem, and at this point, it really looks as if HP has been moving in the wrong direction since the Compaq merger. The buyout of Palm was probably the finishing stroke. Palm was worth less than nothing in my opinion.

The only thing that's clear at this point is that the Touchpad is lingering liability. HP should simply offer to buy back existing Touchpads and destroy remaining inventories so that they don't have to offer support.

The Touchpad was the Edsel of the tablet market and should never have happened to begin with.

 

At least HP is going out with a bang.

The dv6t and dv6z are amazing.

 

Again HP is looking to spin-off its PC business, not wind it down. This is only bad news for the handful of WebOS users, not HP PC owners. There's no reason to panic.

I'd feel confident about the 1 year warranty on a HP Pavilion notebook. Would I feel confident about the 3 year warranty on a $2,000 Elitebook? Uhh....not so much. Personally, I think businesses will avoid HP's Probooks and Elitebooks until the future of the PC business is decided.

 

looks like it's the last elitebook i bought.

stupid hp, stupid.

 

Our warranties are perfectly fine. HP's PC business is the largest in the industry and it will take them quite some time to sell it. Thus, people who just got the basic 1 year plan will still mostly deal with HP. Furthermore, anyone who buys something that huge is going to be around for a long time simply out of inertia and they are liable for all of the warranties so even if you got the 3 year variety, you're still fine.

Nevertheless, I'm a little sad to hear this. HP's laptops have never been the best out there, but HP has generally had something decent for a reasonable price at any given time. There are very few laptop manufacturers now and it seems that number will continue to shrink.

 

This is by no means the "death" of the part of HP which makes personal computers... anybody else remember when IBM, not Lenovo made Thinkpads? Anybody who owns an HP PC will be just fine.

 

IBM ThinkPad is still etched in my memory.

I grew up around them.

 

At the moment, it has not been confirmed that HP is leaving the PC business. At least from what I'm seeing -- this is still a rumor and that HP has only considered the move.

 

IBM continued to honor their Thinkpads' warranties long after selling their PC division to Lenovo. In fact, many current Thinkpads are still serviced by IBM. Hopefully HP will do the same for their PCs.

 

Unfortunately its no rumor, CNN article there goes another great PC making company (right after IBM) I bet Michael Dell has a big smile on his face now. I just cant believe that they think the personal computer section is not bringing enough profit, after all they are number one in the world by sales of PC's

 

Fact: HP is considering spinning off its PC division.

Rumor: HP has decided to spin off its PC division.

But if I understand it correctly, HP is #1 based on the number of computers shipped, not the profit.

 

Just got done reading the live weblog on This is My Next.

HP still #1 shipper.
They may OR may not spin off OR sell personal computer (called PSG) part of the company. They're just announcing to investors that they're exploring options.
webOS devices are dead. The software part may or may not continue/be licensed. No decision on that yet.

 

So disappointed. I open my brand new Elitebook, fire up my browser, and BAM!

There goes my 3 year warranty...I was wondering why Elitebooks were so much cheaper than Thinkpads and Precisions. I guess HP doesn't plan on honoring warranties for the full term.

HP's PSG pulled in $41 billion in revenue, but only had a 13% profit -- not enough for shareholders.

HP may drop PCs, to buy Autonomy for $11.7 billion - Business - Personal finance - Earnings - msnbc.com

 

I bet Micheal Dell is smiling now!!
Dang it all anyway.

 

Michael Dell doesn't have much of a reason to smile when you consider Dell's quarterly numbers. HP is spinning off the PC business at a time when it leads in marketshare, if you don't count the iPad as a PC, but trails in profits. Dell also isn't very profitable and hasn't been successful in the tablet market. I don't see any reason for joy at Dell.

 

HP is way behind Apple is you count the iPad as a PC, or fairly close, if you compare Macs to HP PCs, although it's clear that Apple has huge margins and much, much higher average transaction prices.

 

Who cares about marketshare! The important question is: who's making the most profit?

...and why not? The iPad 2 costs 500-800. What's the average selling price of a HP laptop?

 

Big mistake. In a crisis it is better to have wider appeal than to be restricted.

 

if HP gets out of the consumer pc business will our warranties still be covered?

 

I disagree. It's better to do a few things right than a lot of things just-a-bit. Same reason Ford spun off the Premier Auto Group (Volvo, Land Rover, and Jaguar), killed one flagging division (Mercury), and used the capital to reinvest in improving the core products (Ford and Lincoln). Worked out great for them.

Substitute Personal Services Group for Premier Auto Group, TouchPad for Mercury, and printers/servers for Ford/Lincoln. The business makes perfect sense.

And note: Volvo, Land Rover, and Jaguar did NOT go away. Instead, they were spun off to Chinese and Indian companies who had the capital to invest in new strong products, but needed a foot in the door in the North American market. I fully expect the same will happen with the Pavilion, Envy, ProBook, and EliteBook divisions.

 

Huh??? BBC said it's confirmed ....

BBC News - Hewlett-Packard to exit computing and buy Autonomy

I'm confused

 

This title is misleading. Read the rest of the article and it clearly shows that HP is only considering the idea of selling / spinning off the business.

If HP does spin off / sell the business, I'm pretty sure they won't just let existing warranties go to waste...

 

I blame inception. Gahh

 

Is it safe to buy a Probook right now? Or should I just go with a Dell just to be safe?

 

This is a grievous revelation. HP's competitive blend of specs and affordability has kept me in its corner for every laptop purchase I have made. I have made three. My previous two desktops were Compaqs, which actually worked much better than my only PC that has not been from the HP family, an overhyped IBM Aptiva. I love my HP Envy 17. It's the first high-end laptop I've ever owned, and it performs splendidly. I hope they retain the PC business. I can't believe I've become brand-loyal. It was by accident, I swear.

 

The spinoff doesn't mean you can't be brand-loyal anymore. They could pull a Volvo. Volvo spun off Volvo cars long ago, leaving Volvo trucks and Volvo cars as two separate and unrelated companies (Volvo trucks used the capital to buy Scania trucks). That wasn't the death of Volvo cars though...the company actually made some of its best models after the spin-off, when it joined up with Ford. S60R? XC70? C30? All post-spinoff models.

There's a very good chance HP computers could still exist after the spinoff, just as a separate company from HP printers/servers, and likely affiliated with some other company that's got some capital to invest in R&D but who needs name recognition in North American markets.

 

HP To End Tablet, Phone Businesses, May Sell PC Arm

Report: HP to sell PC business, move toward software and the cloud

HP to ?Reinvent? Company With Return to Roots - Bloomberg

HP to cut tablets, phones and spin off PC business. Should Microsoft buy? | The Microsoft Blog - seattlepi.com[/QUOTE]

 

I'm either thinking about getting a Probook 4430s (1366x768) from TD or a Dell Latitude E6420 (1600x900) from the dell outlet with a coupon. Probook comes out to $650 + $8 shipping with one year warranty while the Dell comes out to $663.20 + free shipping and a three year warranty. Both have around the same specs.

The dell is appealing to me more because of the warranty and HP's "rumored" spin off. I start college on the 23rd so I'm buying one today (6/19/11). But I'm still a little hesitant of which to buy. I like the Probook because of the design. I'm not really sure how the Dell Latitude is about heat issues and I think HP has fixed their's or so I've read.

Your opinion?

 

they should spin it off and call it "compaq".

 

I read the press release they have gone nutty and want to sell everything hardware related "Consumer PC's, etc".

Its not that the hardware side is losing money its just that its not making a lot "According to HP". They looked into their magic ball and have seen the demise of the consumer PC market so they want to sell off the section that can lose money in the future.

IBM sold off their laptop business for $1.25 billion but they were loosing money to the tune of a billion dollars. HP already had a ultrabook according to rumors and seemed prepared for the future. HP should have at least waited till they got into some real loss like IBM did.

What HP needs to do is to cut the online discounts "They are a bloody lot for USA", focus on a envy like range "People adore ENVY's more than 15z" and start a gaming desktop/laptop range. Its sad to see HP giving up since competition will go down and in my view the only real HP competition was Dell and sometimes Asus.

They could have also used more uniformity like Apple they have a zillion laptops with small differences idk why? With the new ultrabook platform they could have made it easy but HP jumped the gun.

 

Why don't they just sell all segment except the printer biz?
Isn't that suppose to be the most profitable?
This $10 billion acquisition is gonna be a big tax write-off.

FACT: Most of Apple's biz is internally/organically created with support of external apps makers of course.

IBM service biz (software) > HP.

Watch this CEO run the company to the ground.

 

I do not care. I am done with HP.

I only hope HP will become compaq, so the prices of cheap computers from other brands will not grow

 

Hard to belive this is the same company that made Tc1100:

HP Compaq TC1100 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



I still have 1 of these it was my first HP...

 

That's my prediction as well. Mark Hurd's resignation was a huge loss for HP.

If I were the HP CEO, this is what I would do to restructure their PC division: Get rid of all the consumer-grade laptops, whose poor quality has given HP computers a bad reputation. Keep only the Elitebooks and desktop lines. Large-scale reliability surveys have shown that HP desktops improved significantly in recent years, and the Elitebooks are widely known to be the best business-class laptops in the world.

 

Hey, remember when IBM sold the Thinkpad line to Lenovo, and all of the existing Thinkpads exploded simultaneously and the warranties were all voided?

Oh, neither do I, because it didn't happen. Take it down a notch in the overreaction department.

 

This isn't a biggie. Just bought a Envy 17 3D, it runs Windows 7 and will continue to run and receive updates. I can even upgrade to Windows 8 in the future. My 2 year warranty will almost certainly honored if HP PC division sells out.

The real losers here are the WebOS crowd. They got stuck with a completely dead platform.

 

I really feel bad for anyone who hopped on the TouchPad wagon.

 

If by "huge loss" you meant Hurd's purchasing Palm, then yeah...

 

LOL. Zing!

It's funny because it's true.

 

HP can't even sell a tablet and you people think the news of a spin off is a rumor? Give me a break.

 

HP stock down 20%

Hewlett-Packard Company: NYSE:HPQ quotes & news - Google Finance

 

Everyone makes mistakes. We need to consider his entire 5-year tenure as HP's CEO, not just one or two bad decisions that he made. During those 5 years, he made HP a much stronger company.

From dictionary.com: "rumor" = a story or statement in general circulation without confirmation or certainty as to facts.

Even HP itself doesn't know for sure about the spin-off, so how could you call it a certainty? Many people (including myself) believe it will happen, but such a belief doesn't make the spin-off a certainty.

 

It's not a rumour.

 

This discussion is going in circles. Take a look at HP's official news releases for yourself: HP Newsroom . Others already copy-and-pasted some of the relevant passages yesterday, but I will do it again:

"As part of the transformation, HP announced that its board of directors has authorized the exploration of strategic alternatives for the company's Personal Systems Group. HP will consider a broad range of options that may include, among others, a full or partial separation of PSG from HP through a spin-off or other transaction. (See accompanying press release.)

HP will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. The devices have not met internal milestones and financial targets. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward."