Thu
May 24 2012
11:01 am
HP cutting 27,000 jobs
By: R. Neal

HP confirmed massive layoffs of 27,000 employees after announcing lower sales and profits for the most recent quarter. The move will "rationalize HP’s go-to-market strategy, branding, supply chain and customer support worldwide," according to a statement by CEO Meg Whitman.

Maybe instead they should build better products with better drivers that will actually install and staff their call centers with people who know their products and give a shit about customers.

Topics:
Andy Axel's picture

The smartest thing that HP

Submitted by Andy Axel on Thu, 2012/05/24 - 11:15am.

The smartest thing that HP did was to spin off their instrumentation products as Agilent so that their continued incompetence in the PC and IT consulting marketplace didn't poison their brand.

bizgrrl's picture

8 percent of its

Submitted by bizgrrl on Thu, 2012/05/24 - 12:04pm.

8 percent of its workforce
...
The company said the layoffs would be made mainly through early retirement
...
"a third of the layoffs [9,000] would be in the United States"

Hey, IMO their products are great, their software (drivers, etc.) not so much.

Andy Axel's picture

HP and Compaq products both

Submitted by Andy Axel on Thu, 2012/05/24 - 2:37pm.

HP and Compaq products both used to be much better independently than they have become as a single company.

And I still can't figure what the EDS buy brought to the table. Seems like they wanted to be IBM.

Pam Strickland's picture

I bought a HP laptop in

Submitted by Pam Strickland on Thu, 2012/05/24 - 4:07pm.

I bought a HP laptop in September 2010. I'm not impressed. Of course, until then the only computer product I'd ever owned was Apple. And before this calendar year is out, I'll be going back to Apple. Maybe that's a different story, maybe not. But I had a software problem within the first week and it took days to get it worked out and there was really no reason for it. And last fall I had a hardware problem that required days of nonsense to clarify that it was still under warranty -- Apple takes one phone call to varify that you're under warranty. And then it had to be shipped off for three weeks. The same problem in an Apple could have been fixed either at the Apple Store or at MCS and turned around in 48-72 hours. Never again is all I can say. If y'all love the HP, I'll have one ready to sell you soon.

R. Neal's picture

Lenovo ThinkPad for Windows

Submitted by R. Neal on Thu, 2012/05/24 - 4:41pm.

Lenovo ThinkPad for Windows notebooks, Dell Optiplex for Windows desktops. Not sure what we'll do when those are gone.

bizgrrl's picture

Was talking about HP

Submitted by bizgrrl on Thu, 2012/05/24 - 4:42pm.

Was talking about HP printers. Never had an HP computer and stopped buying Compaq pcs before HP bought them. I love Dell, the right model, of course. Knew someone who had an HP, many years ago. It lasted a very long time. Pretty sure it
went out-of-date before any problems. Think we've been here before.

Factchecker's picture

Nice work, Republican business "leaders"!

Submitted by Factchecker on Thu, 2012/05/24 - 8:12pm.

Carly Fiorina ruined HP by foolishly porking up the company to become so bloated, then went into GOP politics as a Romney-esque business leader after she was ousted. Now, erstwhile GOP candidate Whitman takes over as a Romney-esque business leader and lets the blood spill.

Imagine if they had used such expertise to ruin run government, reminiscent of the run-government-like-a-business promise made by Becky Duncan Massey. Should we be worried?

Factchecker's picture

HP printers good, yes. Guess

Submitted by Factchecker on Thu, 2012/05/24 - 8:20pm.

HP printers good, yes. Guess they probably still make those awesome giant plotters too. Seems I've heard a lot of complaints about other HP computer products in recent years, though.

I agree about Agilent, Andy, though it would have been nice to have swapped the names. Even having the HP brand panache didn't work out for Meg's company.

Hapax's picture

Desktop problems

Submitted by Hapax on Thu, 2012/05/24 - 8:54pm.

I bought an HP desktop 3 years ago and had 3 hardware failures within the first 6 months. One was very serious and known to HP. It took me 8 months to get the problem fixed and HP took a year for others affected by this obvious problem. I spent hours on the phone with them and their attitude was terrible.

The best solution is to build your own. That's what I'm doing next.

Strategically, HP should narrow its focus and stick to what it's good at.

Andy Axel's picture

HP should narrow its focus

Submitted by Andy Axel on Fri, 2012/05/25 - 1:19am.

HP should narrow its focus and stick to what it's good at.

There are only so many people left who want to purchase scientific calculators...

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