HP to kill its PC business and also WebOS based tablets, phones

LOLerskates. Someone please dig up the PALM thread so we can revel in our foresight of this $1B+post-acquisition-costs epic fail. Blue chip company though, right Zilla?

The news is breaking every where now: LINK

Not long ago, I heard that HP was planning to put the WebOS operating system on all their computers (alongside regular Windows), not just on their phones/tablets. Wonder what happened to that plan?

Just reading the first link, Autonomy's business appears to be enterprise-related, not consumer. They said they were biting the bullet and dumping webOS (which I think is a smart move, after such a dumb one), they didn't say they were going to stop making hardware altogether. I realize the headline says "to spin off," but the only mention of that is a completely unsupported "thinking about exploring strategic options" line in the first sentence. If they do indeed decide to spin it off, its not relevant to HP anymore, so it doesn't need to replace anything.

wow

kfizz

26.69 aftermarket

Is HPQ a good buy now or is there a good chance it will fall further?

quote:

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Shares of Hewlett-Packard tumbled Friday following the company's announcement that it is seeking to spin-off its PC division and will kill off the hardware line it built around Palm's webOS.

HP's (HPQ, Fortune 500) stock ended the day down $5.91, or 20%, closing at $23.60 per share. That marks the stock's lowest level since Aug. 16, 2005, mere months after Carly Fiorina was forced out as CEO. Shares even fell below the nadir they hit during the depths of the Great Recession in March 2009.

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Too bad RIM wasted its money on QNX, now that WebOS is there for the taking...

The HP TouchPad $99 debacle. Corporate Mismanagement 101:

quote:

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Choice 1) Sell HP Touchpad initially for $200, a loss of $100 for each tablet. Gain large market share and mindshare. Developers get on board and build apps. Create a great ecosystem. Have a strong foothold in one of the fastest growing and profitable market segments in the technology industry ever.

Choice 2) Kill off an entire brand in 40 days. Sell HP Touchpad at $99. Lose $300 each touchpad with no hope of a return on investment. Essentially kill off WebOS mindshare by stating you are "discontinuing it". Create a terrible PR with your customers just when the Touchpad was starting to become recognized. Lose $XX billion in stocks. Piss off basically everyone and their grandmother. Upset shareholders. Alienate customers, distributors, carriers.

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Will this lead to Leo's eventual dismissal or was it all part of the Board's long term strategy to turn HP into another IBM/Oracle focussing on large margin enterprise service business?

Agreed, and gaining market share while losing money hand over fist is completely useless unless you have some other revenue stream on which to capitalize on that market share. HP doesn't have that, no one but Apple does (iTunes, etc). However, I hope other tablet manufacturers are paying attention, this is a literal once in a lifetime opportunity into the collective minds of the tablet market. Once HP's inventory is liquidated and they're just re-selling on ebay, you'll have a real market price point to work from.

Me too, I think $200 for the 16g is about my expectation. Now, to throw some valuation analysis into it, I think you could say that's already priced at a large discount for obvious reasons (let say 50% for shits and giggles), and that it lacks an important feature that I think can and will have to be a standard on almost all future tablets, 3/4G, so attach another discount (10%) to that. So, reverse those discounts, and I think your standard, run-of-the-mill 2H 2011/2012 tab should price just over $300. Get them in the $3-400 range instead of the $5-600 range and they will start selling.

Just bought 2!