With all the bad moves HP has made recently, this is a good one.<p>Although my testimony is likely not worth much, I feel it's important to convey why I think HP's PC division is worth keeping around.<p>My boss' HP desktop died, he brought it to me to see if I could fix it quickly, and I went through the steps on HP's website to "troubleshoot" it. I was pretty sure the power supply was dead, and I sent an email to support explaining all the steps I went through to determine that. There was an option on the page to list experience level, and I put it at the max.<p>The first response I got was that they would send a shipping box for it and that they would replace the PSU.<p>They 1) trusted their customer and 2) didn't back and forth, wasting their time and mine.<p>I got the box within a few days and returned the system to HP. It was back within 3 days (this is a week total from initial contact to returned system), and the hard drive wasn't even reformatted.<p>This is the kind of service that I am used to from Apple (fix it and forget it), and it renewed my hope in HP, but this was a little over a year ago, so who knows what's going on now.
Wow. What is going on there? At first I thought Apotheker was hired to complete some "unpopular" tasks, and then a new CEO could start over. But it seems like the board was completely asleep while Apotheker made his decisions. I am looking forward to some massive lawsuits brought against these people. Apotheker probably was the most clever guy in this, and knew that he could make a quick 20 million even though he would be fired. Would be interested in insights from HP employees.
Understanding HP's dilemma is as simple as looking at the comps.<p>HP is trading at 6.5x P/E currently.<p>Yet HP's consulting business should be worth more separate (IBM at 14x, Accenture at 18x)<p>And HP's hardware business should be worth more separate (compare Toshiba at 12x, Apple at 15x, even Dell at 9x)<p>As a result I understand why they allowed Apotheker to do what he did.<p>Cut ONCE, bleed heavily and launch two strong, focused companies that aren't burdened by the distraction of the other and can unlock maximum shareholder value.<p>BUT wow, do they have a fricking communication challenge.<p>Every press release (even this one) is dry, complicated and nonsensical.<p>The current press release talks about a "data driven decision".<p>Why can't they just explain what they're doing and why?<p>Come on HP.
First good decision they've made in a while. Too bad they are unlikely to reverse the WebOS decision.<p>I have to wonder how much this had to do with not finding anyone to buy it at a price they were willing to take.