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A once great company fading away with a series of inept "related industry" female CEOs at the helm.

Tech companies require tech CEOs. And men make better leaders than women....just simple biology. The truth exists whether PC people want it to...or not.

Er, the person who messed up HP was Leo Apotheker, who happens to be a man. If anything Meg Whitman is somewhat fixing his mistakes.

No, men don't necessarily have better leadership skills than a woman. It has nothing to do with biology. Don't be so damned sexist.
 
Good stuff, I have a HP laptop and have never had a problem with it. Unlike the people I know with Macbooks, they always seem to break especially the dvd drives.
 
Er, the person who messed up HP was Leo Apotheker, who happens to be a man. If anything Meg Whitman is somewhat fixing his mistakes.
The men vs. women bit is nonsense.

But the problems started with Carly Fiorina, and has gotten worse from there. Mark Hurd didn't do HP any favors either, as the profits generated were at employee's expense (5% pay cuts, elimination of profit sharing, elimination of flexible hours), and insufficient R&D expenditures means there's no products long term for HP to sell. Yet he and a few select others, got incredible raises. Go figure. :rolleyes:

The Fiorina+Hurd disaster particularly affected the company in how things were run. Specifically, they destroyed the managerial methodologies by which MR's Hewlett and Packard ran things (some were their own inventions).

There's a lot more detail as to what's happened, but it comes down to the fact that the BoD doesn't seem to know how to pick a CEO anymore, nor do they know how to put a succession plan into place. For example, they keep going outside of the company, rather than groom 1 - 2 candidates from within the company, that already have an experience track record in terms of HP's business, and loyalty to HP (ideally, it should be a deeper commitment than their pay and benefits package).

But sadly, Meg Whitman doesn't know squat about computer hardware, so I don't really expect much from her as an experience issue, not gender.

Two thirds of the current workforce would walk out if they get an equivalent job offer. Not a promotion, more money, ... same job, different company. It's that bad there now.
 
What's the link to get the report on who is up-ranking and down-ranking posts?

I cannot imagine how empty someone's life would have to be to attach any importance on anonymous up/down rankings on anonymous posts on a forum discussing rumors.

I appreciate form. If the shape of the sentences and paragraphs in your post are pleasing to me, I'll rate it up. What you've said might be nonsense, but that's your own problem in life to solve.

Otherwise, I rate up & down, as a rating against the rating system itself.


Don't read too much into it.
 
Er, the person who messed up HP was Leo Apotheker, who happens to be a man. If anything Meg Whitman is somewhat fixing his mistakes.

No, men don't necessarily have better leadership skills than a woman. It has nothing to do with biology. Don't be so damned sexist.


Please stop. Apotheker made those decisions with the approval of the board, of which Meg Whitman was a member. You really think Apotheker made the decisions to buy Autonomy, shut down their WebOS hardware and talk of spinning off PC business without approval of the board?

In other news:

HP insiders say WebOS to be shut down.

http://www.businessinsider.com/hp-may-shut-down-webos-division-2011-10
 
My school switched to Macs.. It WASN'T cheaper.. But with kids downloading ****, they screwed the windows ones up, and reformatting got old quick.
Sounds like you haven't factored IT costs into your equation. What is the cost variance when you let half of the IT costs go?
 
Sounds like you haven't factored IT costs into your equation. What is the cost variance when you let half of the IT costs go?
What sort of logic was used in creating the network policies that allowed the kids able to download infected files from questionable sites in the first place?

I realize that not all sites will be known at the time the download occurs, but policies should have been created that was able to reduce the frequency of infected systems, thus reducing IT man-hours spent on fixing the problems.

Even with Macs, it's still possible for the kids to download something that contains a trojan, such as from cracked software downloaded from torrent sites (various Adobe products come to mind).

So I don't see just shifting from PC's to Macs as the solution. :confused:
 
Please stop. Apotheker made those decisions with the approval of the board, of which Meg Whitman was a member. You really think Apotheker made the decisions to buy Autonomy, shut down their WebOS hardware and talk of spinning off PC business without approval of the board?

In other news:

HP insiders say WebOS to be shut down.

http://www.businessinsider.com/hp-may-shut-down-webos-division-2011-10

HP's board of directors has eight men and five women. You're going to blame their actions on women?
 
HP's board of directors has eight men and five women. You're going to blame their actions on women?
TheMacBookPro was the one that brought gender into the discussion.

I actually interpreted rdowns' post as gender = non issue. Particularly due to his statement that Apotheker's decisions had the Board of Director's approval (his decisions wouldn't have been implemented without it), which had both men and women on it. Including the newly appointed CEO, Meg Whitman.
 
TheMacBookPro was the one that brought gender into the discussion.

I actually interpreted rdowns' post as gender = non issue. Particularly due to his statement that Apotheker's decisions had the Board of Director's approval (his decisions wouldn't have been implemented without it), which had both men and women on it. Including the newly appointed CEO, Meg Whitman.

Perhaps you're right. I interpreted it as "Meg was on the board, therefore I blame her for everything Apotheker did", hence my comment.
 
It's fine if HP wants to stay in the enterprise market, but after shopping for a new Windows laptop for my significant other, HP's consumer machines are just awful. Too bad they can't build computers that are as sturdy and reliable as my HP 12C...

topmounter and several others are echoing the same sentiments as LTD however they are not downvoted as well? At least be consistent if you choose to partake in this meaningless activity of voting up/down.

I don't really care about the "business world." The "business world" will shell out for anyone that can give them the best volume deal. HP, Dell, etc. It's all the same crap that employees have to put up with. When these boxes are working like they should, of course. And quite frankly, the MS enterprise ecosystem leaves a helluva lot to be desired. That space is crying out for some innovation and User Experience initiatives.

I'm only interested in the consumer side of things. Since what I and others use at the office isn't my choice; it is one that is made for us by the dictates of management and the IT drones that cater to their budgetary decisions. LOL what typical employee in corporate North America actually enjoys their work PC? Few, if any.

Yes, HP still has their successful enterprise division. So what. It's totally meaningless for you and I as consumers. You can replace every single HP unit in the enterprise with a comparable Dell and chances are, and with few exceptions, business will continue unfettered. Box-maker is box-maker is box-maker. They are OEM shells for universally-licensed operating systems. Barely any differentiation between them. But then again, differentiation and User Experience are not priorities in the enterprise. Perfect for volume-pushers.

I worked somewhere that had HP computers on a 3 year refresh cycle. Not just to get a spec bump, but because they are crap. Maybe not as much crap as other volume sellers, but crap nonetheless. I supported about 400 of these things. I assure you it wasn't pleasant.

Why do you bother posting in threads like this? Every post of yours is down ranked for a reason. Its a rediculous sounding reply. I'm sorry, but Apple has had its share of screw ups to. HP is only in the hole they are in due to crappy leadership.

Perhaps if you weren't so Apple biased, and actually tried a touchpad, you would see where some people are coming from. I tried a touchpad at BestBuy. Pretty nice. Yes, the hardware sucked, but the OS was amazing. Just needed developers.. and due to the fact that the boat was unstable, no one really wanted to spend time writing for a platform when they didn't know what would happen to it.

WebOS has its potential. It just needs great hardware. As for the PC side of HP, they are great IMO. Just like Dell.. for those hating Dell, yes I hate their consumer gear, so I only buy Latitude or Optiplex machines from them. They are quality!

The problem with this is that some consumers are willing to settle for less. Steve was and Apple is trying to give you more of what you deserve. A product that is integrated well and designed extremely well. No one should have to say things like this about a product:

"I tried a touchpad at BestBuy. Pretty nice. Yes, the hardware sucked, but the OS was amazing."
 
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Keep your WebOS TouchPads, they might be worth something down the road.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/28/hp-psg-keep-webos-kill

http://www.neowin.net/news/hp-may-finally-shut-down-webos-division

HP may finally shut down webOS division

There were big cheers in the PC industry when HP announced Thursday that it was going to keep its PC business in-house. But there may not be much in the way of a celebration over at the webOS division. The Guardian reports via unnamed sources that HP could shut down the webOS business after acquiring the operating system, along with Palm, for $1.2 billion back in April 2010; 500 people at HP could lose their jobs if such a decision is made.

One unnamed webOS employee is quoted in the article as saying, "There's a 95 (percent) chance we all get laid off between now and November, and I for one am thinking it's for the best." One big clue that change is coming is the fact that the vice-president of webOS worldwide developer relations Richard Kerris has left the company to join Nokia.

HP has said in the past it was committed to developing webOS even if it would no longer sell webOS-based hardware devices such as the Palm Pre smartphones and the HP TouchPad which crashed and burned earlier this summer. However, all of that talk was before HP brought in new CEO Meg Whitman a few weeks ago and she seems to not be shy about shifting HP's previous roadmap.

Indeed Whitman has already said HP plans to release new tablet products but they will be running Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system. With that kind of statement there doesn't seem to be much room for HP to hold onto a rival operating system like webOS.


WebOS is nice, why nobody want to continue to support it:(

Once you've messed up its exposure to consumers enough, it becomes unmarketable.
 
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LTD. You say Jobs and Apple dont turn out crap and/or care about ther customers. Is that right? I think you really do live in a world that only exists from 2007 to now. At the end of 1984, when Mac sales had slowed to a crawl, he slapped on an emulation program onto the Lisa and called it the Macintosh XL. Please explain.
 
I thought Stephen Elop was bad for Nokia, but Leo Apotheker takes the cake as the worst CEO of the year (if not ever). WebOS aside, why the hell would he want to spin-off HP into service-only company when their PC sales is still currently #1? The late-Bill Hewlett and late-Dave Packard would be rolling over in their graves right now. What a shame and a sham they had to hire an idiot that hurt one of the early pioneers of Silicon Valley.

I am very familiar to what bad executive decisions is like. I followed the LA Clippers for over 20 years and know the pain having someone like Donald Sterling (a tightwad) running the show. And didn't we have George W. Bush for 8 years as President? It would be like you won the NBA championship recently and then decide to trade away your best player and all your draft picks that same summer. That is what Leo did to HP. It is like he got drunk one night and decided to find the best way to get fired while HP is still #1 in PC sales.
 
nanofrog's interpretation is correct.

Ah. I apologize for the misunderstanding then.

----------

I worked somewhere that had HP computers on a 3 year refresh cycle. Not just to get a spec bump, but because they are crap. Maybe not as much crap as other volume sellers, but crap nonetheless. I supported about 400 of these things. I assure you it wasn't pleasant.

If I may ask, which model of HP was this? I've had nothing but good experiences with a pair of Elitebooks, both for work and personal uses. Also, which PC laptops do you prefer?
 
If I may ask, which model of HP was this? I've had nothing but good experiences with a pair of Elitebooks, both for work and personal uses. Also, which PC laptops do you prefer?

I do agree that laptops were a bit better than the workstations. As it's been a couple of years I can't remember the laptop model numbers. But, the workstation models that I can remember are d510 and d530. I always remember thinking they were great machines when we initially deployed them, but a couple years later they were ready to be replaced. Of course, I do attribute some of that the OS but that's still part of the package. The folks on the non-IT side of things don't/won't differentiate between the box and the OS, thus you have a lot of people that won't touch HP when shopping for their personal workstation/laptop because of the negative impression from their work machines. And unfortunately, these are the folks that buy a majority of the boring-box PCs.

As for my preference in PC laptop that's a bit more difficult. I've only had a few (maybe 4) and they all had their issues. Not, that ANY laptop won't including Apple's. But if I had to pick a PC laptop it would probably be an Acer. The problem with PC laptops as mentioned above is that I know in a couple of years I should expect to replace/upgrade it and that's why I don't buy them anymore. I've had my 13" MBP for about a year now so in a couple years I'll see how it compares to my PC laptop experience. According to these forums and countless other sources, I should be able to keep it for several years. However, I don't always drink the kool-aid.
 
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I thought Stephen Elop was bad for Nokia, but Leo Apotheker takes the cake as the worst CEO of the year (if not ever). WebOS aside, why the hell would he want to spin-off HP into service-only company when their PC sales is still currently #1? The late-Bill Hewlett and late-Dave Packard would be rolling over in their graves right now. What a shame and a sham they had to hire an idiot that hurt one of the early pioneers of Silicon Valley.

I am very familiar to what bad executive decisions is like. I followed the LA Clippers for over 20 years and know the pain having someone like Donald Sterling (a tightwad) running the show. And didn't we have George W. Bush for 8 years as President? It would be like you won the NBA championship recently and then decide to trade away your best player and all your draft picks that same summer. That is what Leo did to HP. It is like he got drunk one night and decided to find the best way to get fired while HP is still #1 in PC sales.


Let's put the blame where it belongs, on the HP board. Apotheker was from SAP when recruited for HP. SAP is a enterprise software company. Obviously, this is the direction the HP board wanted to take. If not, why the hell would you hire a software guy to run a hardware company? Apotheker also didn't make the decisions he did without approval of the board. Apotheker sure screwed up the messaging but he is the scapegoat here.

To make matters worse, they hired Meg Whitman to replace him. She has no hardware experience and was on the board that approved the very decisions she is now reversing course on.
 
Let's put the blame where it belongs, on the HP board. Apotheker was from SAP when recruited for HP. SAP is a enterprise software company. Obviously, this is the direction the HP board wanted to take. If not, why the hell would you hire a software guy to run a hardware company? Apotheker also didn't make the decisions he did without approval of the board. Apotheker sure screwed up the messaging but he is the scapegoat here.

HP is much more than a hardware company though. In a sense, they are an enterprise software company as much as they are an enterprise hardware company, a printer/imaging solutions vendor and a consumer PC vendor.

Where I work, we have tons of different HP software solutions to manage many aspects of either our infrastructure or our communications/business processes.

Seems to me Leo wanted to put 100% of the focus on the Enterprise side of the business and ditch the consumer side.
 
...the workstation models that I can remember are d510 and d530.
Those were business desktops, not workstations (it does tend to make a difference).

To make matters worse, they hired Meg Whitman to replace him. She has no hardware experience and was on the board that approved the very decisions she is now reversing course on.
Exactly.

It leaves me with the impression HP's CEO and BoD don't have a clue as to the direction to take the company, and the lack of hardware experience would be a big part of that IMO. Sadly, this doesn't seem all that new either. :(

HP is much more than a hardware company though. In a sense, they are an enterprise software company as much as they are an enterprise hardware company, a printer/imaging solutions vendor and a consumer PC vendor.
I agree.

They need both due to integrated solutions on the Enterprise side. But they've lost focus on the Printer and Personal Systems groups. Yes, they still sell lots of equipment, but buyers realize it's not that good, and will abandon HP in a heartbeat if they discover something better within their budget.
 
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