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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
Hewlett Packard, once renowned and beloved, has fallen. While the Autonomy writedown, the board spying scandal and the Mark Hurd affair grabbed headlines and our attention, less obvious has been the change in its core values and actions reflecting those values. Simply put, the company has strayed far from its roots of what once made it great. As an exercise, let's take a look at some remarks by David Packard (taken from his early 90's book, "The HP Way") to see if the company still adheres to them 20 years after publication of the book.
"When Bill Hewlett and I put together the initial plans for our business enterprise in 1937. we hadn't yet focused our interest and energies on the field of electronic instrumentation. What we did decide, however, was that we wanted to direct our efforts toward making important technical contributions to the advancement of science, industry, and human wellfare. It was a lofty, ambitious goal. But right from the beginning, Bill and I knew we didn't want to be a "me-too" company merely copying products already on the market. To this day, HP continually strives to develop products that represent true advancement."
Witness one of the newest additions to HP's lineup of laptop computers.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/yeA9OHn.jpg)
Looks awfully similar to Apple's Macbook Air doesn't it? Worse yet is that they weren't even the first ones to rip off the industrial design of the Macbook Air. That honor goes to ASUS and their Zenbook product line.
There are companies that thrive by actively stealing technologies and ripping off designs super aggressively (cough Samsung cough). But to these companies' credit, they go about their duplication and reverse engineering efforts with incredible speed, gutso, and determination. They bar no holds in competing and doing everything in their power to win, and for that I respect them, though I do not admire them.
When you copy half assedly, you get the worst of both worlds. You lose respect and you don't even make money.
When deciding whether to go forward with the 32 bit computer business that would pit HP squarely against IBM's mainframe business, "Bill Hewlett's sage advice had always been, "Don't try to take a fortified hill, especially if the army on top is bigger than your own. Omega was case in point. The project was cancelled ... [but] if we could scale it back to a sixteen-bit machine and simplify the operating system, we might have a promining product. So the Omega development program was redirected and renamed "Alpha." The result was a sophisticated, low-cost, sixteen-bit machine for processing small to medium-sized on-line business transactions. Alpha became HP's first generas-purpose computer, introduced in 1972 as the HP3000. The HP3000 ... is one of the computer industry's most enduring success stories. More than twenty years after its introduction, its descendant machines are just now entering their obsolescent phase."
When the iPad had 90% market share and near complete mindshare of the Tablet market a few years ago, HP lauched the Touchbook, an undifferentiated product at the same price point as the iPad. It was never relevant other than during its brief $99 firesale during the holiday season of 2011.
Since then, products like the Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7 have shown themselves to be worthy alternatives by offering a lower price point and smaller form factor to consumers. While their overall success is debatable (the Kindle Fire reportedly isn't doing all too well lately and the Nexus 7 still only sold about 10MM units in 2012), they have certainly cemented themselves in our minds as products at least worth considering.
"Just as it has in the past, our growth in the future will come from new products... By new products, I mean products that will make real contributions to technology not products that copy what someone else has done. This must be our standrd in the future just as it has been in the past."
At least in the consumer space, I can't remember the last great product HP has created. I wonder if they have created anything of note after the inkjet printers of the early 90's. Perhaps there have been great technical breakthroughs that weren't productized well, a symptom that Microsoft Research has always struggled with (remember the surface table?). I do hear that HP makes quality server and networking equipment though.
I've ripped on HP throught this post but I want to make one thing clear: I have an undying affection for the company. I grew up just minutes away from its headquarters and my first job in my life was at HP Labs as a research intern. I know that its engineers are talented, wonderful people. It pains me to see it in its current state.
It will be a happy day in my life if and when the company once again becomes a technical leader and a great place for engineers to work.
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Originally posted here
  
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United States22883 Posts
The title made me so worried for a second. :O
I think HP was actually the first to rip off the MBP, before the Zenbooks came out. When they first launched the Envy line, and later with the quadcore stuff, it seemed like they were heading in the right direction. But they never captured that premium feel, which now companies like Acer have even managed.
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HP may never recover really--I mean the PC industry, from which most of their revenue is derived, is such a low-margin one. In fact, I believe the CEO actually said they were going to get out of it despite being the #1 in the industry a few years aback, and then he got a ton of shit for saying that lol. Most of their profit comes from their servers anyway, I think.
Honestly I'm not sure whether they have it in them to do anything ground-breaking and/or change around the company, esp when they're in so deep into such mature, low-margin markets :/ guess only time can tell.
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I clicked here to see if Hawaiianpig is ok.
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Netherlands45349 Posts
What I thought of was Harry Potter, HawaiianPig or H.P Lovecraft
I didn't think it would be Hewlett Packard
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United States33416 Posts
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I was thinking about HawaiianPig lol
Never expected it to be Hewlett Packard.
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On August 03 2013 15:48 thedeadhaji wrote:Looks awfully similar to Apple's Macbook Air doesn't it? Worse yet is that they weren't even the first ones to rip off the industrial design of the Macbook Air. That honor goes to ASUS and their Zenbook product line.
holy shit it really does kinda look like a notebook.
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5673 Posts
Came here looking for HawaiianPig as well. 
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
oh hahah I didn't even stop to think of the HawaiianPig convolusion!
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They make money with printers and ink cartridges nowadays, not computers, that's a train that already departed, you could say. Doesn't surprise me they don't even bother investing that much into it, just be present and try to steal customers from Apple :3
Source: Aunt works for them.
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There's no honor among thieves in the corporate world.
Honestly, if people want to buy shit that looks like Apple shit, it's harder to sell something that looks different than to copy the design.
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Everyone rips each other off, the good side of that is that hopefully they rip off quality. I frankly don't care when it comes to massive corporations. And I have great doubt in Apple since jobs died, good luck finding someone with as great a appreciation and intuition of quality.
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I agree; I don't mind some quick reverse engineering to put out a similar product but doing a half-assed knock-off is just cheep and lazy.
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Wow that's a lot of hidden Apple fanboyness. :p
Yeah the nexus 7 and kindle fire didn't instantly kill the iPad, but with android tying the iPad and windows already around 6% or so both the competitors are doing fine. Hopefully we will see some kind of balance soon.
Yes the zenbook is a wedge like the MBA but if you confuse that concentric design with the MBA's solid white panel you're also confuses. There are only so many ways you can geometrically crate a notebook, and apple should have no right to patent geometry. They do well because they've earned it and until recently, their build quality and service were top notch and unmatched. They are still top notch, they have just been matched.
Edit: on the other hand, I don't mean that stealing is okay or anything. There's just only so many things patents can protect. If apple did something proprietary to get a wedge shape for example, they should have rights to that proprietary method. They shouldn't have rights to the shape itself though. Some things are just natural.
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thought it was gonna be about hawaiianpig sigh
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
Am I the only one who thought it was Hewlett Packard? lol
They haven't done anything innovative that will propel the company forwards in quite some time. Time will tell if HP can turn things around
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I am the only one that came here expecting this 
Only reason I did so is because I am currently reading about HP in the biography of Steve Jobs.
I do agree that most companies are just copying which is a shame. If we go back to the days of IBM and Apple we can see that IBM made a ton of rip-offs of other company's computers. Steve Jobs did his best to control his products and the consumer experience (everything really) to prevent this from being rip offs of Apple. He also worked the employees' butts off to get only good products out and to keep Apple's goals straight.
HP and other companies are just copying to try and survive. When Apple was lost from Steve there were so many copies of the Macintosh in production at once that when Steve came back he was just like 'wat' and started yelling and screaming at people to get rid of most of the projects because he knew that this loss of focus is why they were almost going bankrupt.
I will note that Jobs set things up so that he could see what Apple was going to be releasing in about the next 3 years (in development of course). So I would say that we won't see a huge change until around 2014-15 unless staff changes at Apple after Steve left were severe.
" good luck finding someone with as great a appreciation and intuition of quality." -MarklarMarklarr
Actually, the head of design when Steve came back(still working right now) has the same appreciation and actually used his own intuition in place of Steve's. They worked and designed the iPod, iMac, iPhone etc. together and had 1 room where Steve spent most of his time in, overseeing and commenting on the designs for all the products of the next 3 years. I would say that Apple still has a great chance of getting some really good quality stuff out.
~Apple Fanboyism~
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They gave up on webOS way too early; same way Nokia hedged a difficult bet dropping a new Symbian and then Meego. Took Envy to copy Dell's Alienware acquisition and never really did much with that either. It's one thing to acquire IP, but another to utilize, market it and get it out there.
webOS, Envy/Alienware, Meego, were all "popular" in their own right, but without influence and power behind them, of course they would fail. But abandoning them and having no follow-up made it way worse for all those companies.
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I used to be a big Dell fanboy back in 98 when I went to college; and most box-cookie PCs have lasted longer than any custom gaming rig I have made throught the years. I never really dealth with HPs until recently when I got a z820 workstation at work and was pretty impressed with the build quality and general tower inner construction and organization. Laptop-wise Thinkpads are still top in build quality I think. THe MSI gaming laptop I have now isnt bad (GT70). Tablet-wise. Apple over all!
/endpersonalopinions.
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i thought you were going to talk about hit points system in games T_T
nice blog btw
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How did the Zenbook rip off macbook air, I don't understand why people say that. Who stole the laptop form-factor? Are all laptops ripoffs from the first one? How else would you go about making a thin laptop if it wasn't with the macbook air general "shape". It seems to me like many of the form factors that came about first were just part of a natural evolution of things, and if form factors were patented and couldn't be ripped off, what would we end up with? Thin laptops with a big bulge on the side as to avoid looking too much like the first guy who did it?
Come on.
Also I'm pretty sure the HP tablet that went on a firesale was called the Touchpad and not the Touchbook.
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I'll actually agree, lately HP products have been gigantic disappointments in my experience.
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The only good thing about HP doing ripoff of Mac is that it's still a PC :p
And tablet's PC were ripped off by Apple from Microsoft. It's quite normal that they all copy each other (samsung apple) etc.. (in fact i learned the first tablet pc was samsung) (not talking about the linux one that was not a tablet pc)
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Russian Federation325 Posts
Laptop [x]
White [x]
Logo on the back [x]
1 billion usd+ Apple lawsuit incoming. I hope these HP scums will get what they deserve.
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
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On August 04 2013 06:18 infinity21 wrote:
Also rectangular shape
With Curved top and bottom to add to sleekness
APPLE PATENT. (probably)
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It clearly looks like a deliberate copy of the macbook design to me. No offense to the apple haters
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On August 03 2013 17:29 Waxangel wrote:
no hawaiianpig, 1/5
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I love my HP pavilion HPE. HP makes good stuff, but like all the big desktop giants they all are shifting to tablets because apple had the huge profits. But I really think HP should downsize and focus on making high quality laptops and desktops, monitors and printers.
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Enterprises that size don't do well if they stagnate, let alone downsize.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
Holy crap that laptop looks exactly like my macbook.
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TLADT24920 Posts
On August 03 2013 23:24 infinity21 wrote:
Am I the only one who thought it was Hewlett Packard? lol
They haven't done anything innovative that will propel the company forwards in quite some time. Time will tell if HP can turn things around
don't worry, I also thought it was about Hewlett Packard lol. HP isn't really a bad company. I mean ya, they may have copied Apple's design but as long as its good quality and at a lower price with similar or better specs, then I don't see anything wrong with it. This is a competitive market and as much as I hate to say it, a lot of things go. One of my siblings has owned an HP laptop for 5+ years now and it still works well after all that time.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
On August 04 2013 08:35 HeeroFX wrote:
I love my HP pavilion HPE. HP makes good stuff, but like all the big desktop giants they all are shifting to tablets because apple had the huge profits. But I really think HP should downsize and focus on making high quality laptops and desktops, monitors and printers.
didn't HP completely exit the phone and tablet business? they've even already made webos open source. pretty sure no new "mobile" device has come from them since the 2011 touchpad
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Canada5155 Posts
It's okay everyone. I'm doing fine. I'll rebound soon enough.
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On August 04 2013 15:21 HawaiianPig wrote:
It's okay everyone. I'm doing fine. I'll rebound soon enough.
GTFO ur slump
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
On August 04 2013 15:21 HawaiianPig wrote:
It's okay everyone. I'm doing fine. I'll rebound soon enough.
more drawings!!
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On August 04 2013 15:21 HawaiianPig wrote:
It's okay everyone. I'm doing fine. I'll rebound soon enough.
Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.
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I had a HP notebook a couple of years ago. I had a pretty large budget from by boss to by a work notebook and I askeed around and people basically recomended Macs (NO WAY), IBM/Lenovo (too ugly, hate the clitoris) and HP, so I went with HP. NEVER AGAIN - the thing was horrible in almost all possible ways. It seems that when you put in standard components (such as an i5 with an Intel board) there is not much to screw up, but there is, it had problems right and left, most of them could be probably traced to very poor cooling and buiild quality. So I inhertied a Dell from a colleague that left recently - and it looked terrble, all plastics (and I worked for DELL in the past, so I kinda hate the company), but it is unbelievably reliable (and I am the guy to whom you would give a piece of hardware to see if it breaks, as I travel a lot, to hostile places, with the notebook).
On the other hand, HP printers are still the shit, at least in consumer/small office segment. I have a LJ1018 at home and I won't really change it (only you really have to by a new cartridge now and then, refilled/3rd party ones are nothing but trouble).
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I think that HP has been focusing more on the server industry rather than personal computers. They have a ton of BIIIIIIIIIIIG name contracts with the government, and very large companies (facebook, apple - they may not have them anymore). They also have some interesting server solutions like their POD's (mobile servers in a tractor truck trailer, with its own cooling system and all) and 3PAR storage (AFAIK, still the fastest and most reliable storage system available). Not to mention their printer market, and the fact that they handle a huge amount of credit card transactions (not through CC sales, but the actual devices I believe).
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IBM/Lenovo (too ugly, hate the clitoris)
??? wait what? something I'm missing here?
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On August 05 2013 04:01 Aerisky wrote:??? wait what? something I'm missing here?
Closest I can think of is the little nib mouse thing in the middle of the keyboard. Didnt know there were laptops that still used that though.
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On August 05 2013 04:34 TheRabidDeer wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2013 04:01 Aerisky wrote:IBM/Lenovo (too ugly, hate the clitoris) ??? wait what? something I'm missing here? Closest I can think of is the little nib mouse thing in the middle of the keyboard. Didnt know there were laptops that still used that though.
Ohh right the pointing stick. Yeah I'm pretty sure thinkpads still have those :p
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I'd like to point out that this isn't an exactly new trend. HP, Dell, and largely most of the former US "powerhouses" in the PC space largely got their start from trying to build cheap(er) clones of the IBM PC. Most of these companies live off of the mainstream, and Apple has done a good job of convincing the mainstream that they make products that are better than your typical craptops that shipped in the mid-late 2k's. Funnily enough though, this hasn't stopped many manufacturers from pushing out crap: they simply create a new product line geared towards emulating Apple products while maintaining the generic 1366x768 14-15" throwaways.
And some food for the trolls:
I use a Thinkpad because I like the design. I usually turn the trackpad off because I can't be bothered to take my hands off the homerow and use the trackpoint exclusively. Please continue to enjoy typing on your chiclet keyboards.
It's sad that this thread so quickly devolved into a "I don't like X computer manufacturer because I used Y product and I think it sucked".
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
On August 05 2013 06:30 Loser777 wrote:
And some food for the trolls:
I use a Thinkpad because I like the design. I usually turn the trackpad off because I can't be bothered to take my hands off the homerow and use the trackpoint exclusively. Please continue to enjoy typing on your chiclet keyboards.
.
Loved my X series Thinkpads that I used throughout college and grad school and adored the trackpoint (no other model ever had nearly as good a trackpoint as the Thinkpads). The component quality has degraded a bit in the Lenovo days (in particular the keyboard and the memory) so I'm on the fence atm since the RAM on my last Thinkpad (2007) died after a year and the battery died after 2 years (I think this was part of the faulty batteries shipped from Sony back in the day).
If I ever use a Windows machine for work again (and I don't have to pay for it) it'll definitely be a Thinkpad, probably a T series.
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HP is just going through the recession that many banks/car companies/real estate went through in 2008-2009 because of a decreased demand of their products becuase most of their markets have reached saturation point and they were trying to sell to an oversaturated market for a bit.
I have faith in that woman who is the CEO though, forget her name
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Hong Kong9154 Posts
On August 03 2013 16:01 Jibba wrote:
The title made me so worried for a second. :O
Yeah, I thought HawaiianPig got in trouble.
On August 04 2013 15:21 HawaiianPig wrote:
It's okay everyone. I'm doing fine. I'll rebound soon enough.
and on topic, HP has been on the lowest tier for consumer electronics since at least the tenure of Meg Whitman, the ex-eBay CEO
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On August 05 2013 09:09 itsjustatank wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2013 16:01 Jibba wrote:
The title made me so worried for a second. :O
Yeah, I thought HawaiianPig got in trouble. Show nested quote +On August 04 2013 15:21 HawaiianPig wrote:
It's okay everyone. I'm doing fine. I'll rebound soon enough. and on topic, HP has been on the lowest tier for consumer electronics since at least the tenure of Meg Whitman, the ex-eBay CEO
how is that fair, to pin that stat on the CEO when global macroeconomic trends suggest everyone is suffering
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Hong Kong9154 Posts
Because it fits her management style and the direction she took both companies. Favoring cost-cutting over R&D and innovation is not a long-term recipe for success.
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*sniff sniff* apple fan boy *sniff sniff *
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HP has long stopped being any kinda of technology company, they get their box designed and made by some mob in china/taiwan and then they sell it in the west.
With that being said, their PSG division is still very strong in the business market.
In Australia, 9 out of 10 computers for business are still HP. Lenovo is just seen as that ugly brand from China, no one gives a toss about how it was IBM or not.
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I'm using an HP desktop PC right now actually. Not the best gaming platform but it's quite... reliable? I like my computer but I really need to either change or upgrade it. :p
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5930 Posts
On August 06 2013 22:01 haduken wrote:
HP has long stopped being any kinda of technology company, they get their box designed and made by some mob in china/taiwan and then they sell it in the west.
With that being said, their PSG division is still very strong in the business market.
In Australia, 9 out of 10 computers for business are still HP. Lenovo is just seen as that ugly brand from China, no one gives a toss about how it was IBM or not.
No one gives a toss about Lenovo's legacy because the only place where its remotely related to IBM is in the United States. Over there, Thinkpads still go through IBM if you need post-sales service...IIRC you have to register on IBM's website to lodge a support ticket.
Elsewhere, you get very nice laptops but the service/turnaround is outstandingly dreadful. HP and Dell's service in these areas are miles better than Lenovo so obviously no one cares about jumping ship.
On August 04 2013 12:01 thedeadhaji wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2013 08:35 HeeroFX wrote:
I love my HP pavilion HPE. HP makes good stuff, but like all the big desktop giants they all are shifting to tablets because apple had the huge profits. But I really think HP should downsize and focus on making high quality laptops and desktops, monitors and printers. didn't HP completely exit the phone and tablet business? they've even already made webos open source. pretty sure no new "mobile" device has come from them since the 2011 touchpad
They did but they're jumping back in because they're between a rock and a hard place. They've got a few Android "me too" tablets on the market right now which look and feel exactly the same as the original Nexus 7 (that is to say, cheap and cheerful but not much else). The 7" HP Slate like $150 at JB Hi Fi, a consumer electronics store in Australia.
Meg Whitman's mentioned a few times that they must offer portable smart devices like smartphones and tablets. Also: WebOS hasn't really been open sourced since HP still owns most of the underlying patents and cloud bullshit associated with WebOS and LG now owns the overarching OS to possibly shove in their smart TVs.
To me, HP died the day they got rid of Agilent. They had an awesome division that had stable profits, had awesome R&D and products that didn't suck. So HP did the smart thing and spun it off. Without Agilent, what is HP besides a company that sells rubbish consumer electronics, scientific calculators and decent business hardware?
Really, the story of HP has been a story of abysmal leadership and failed empire building. Carly Fiorina and Mark Hurd spent most of their time at HP to change it to something larger and they ultimately destroyed the culture of the company by spinning off anything good, buying questionable companies and cutting costs/wages like mad. When you can't cut costs anymore and mobile devices have destroyed your main consumer electronics market, what can you do? The guy from SAP tried to buck the trend and turn it into IBM but that's easier said then done...who are you going to sell your consumer computer division to in a post-PC age?
If you want to know why they've strayed from their roots, Carly Fiorina is where you should look. The story is exactly the same with Sony in the 2000s.
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EPT
