Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

HP to cut 25-30k jobs

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 319 posts

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#281

Post by s73v3r »

marincounty wrote: post #254
joshmn wrote: post #8

My father is a field-service engineer for HP in Midwest (based out of Minneapolis, but he has calls all over from Fargo, ND to Mpls, MN to Madison, WI). He is _the_ go-to for their biggest, most senior, most mission-critical clients. He put together UMN's Alpha setup, is the only guy that USPS will call for help, MNSCU, Best Buy, UHG... basically, anyone with an HP setup (server or printer) that's a Fortune 1000 (and…

I feel for your father, and mother. I hope they weather the storm. I was going to mention, that if they are proactive; they might be able to keep their health care expenditures reasonable if they apply to Minnesota's department of health and human services. They will need to spend down assets, but they can usually keep their house, and car. (I know in California, the quality of medical care has gotten much better wit…

Because the governor wants to appear "tough on Obama," even if it means making things worse for his citizens.

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#282

Post by s73v3r »

seibelj wrote: post #168
reuven wrote: post #135

My first job, when I finished college in 1992, was at HP. They hesitated to offer me a job, because they said that when HP offers someone a position, they're basically offering them a job for life. Sure, you can snicker at that comment, since almost no company would (or can, or should) make such a claim nowadays. But people told me that before I got there, in the mid-1980s, there were big problems at the company. Rat…

I just think it's the wrong way to look at things. It's better to cut 30,000 to save the company, than to keep everyone hired and wait for every employee to be out of work.

Is it? I mean, even the people who survive the layoffs are going to know that the company doesn't give a shit about them, and as such, they're not gonna care about the company. People who don't care about the company aren't going to work as hard.

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#283

Post by mzs »

wsxcde wrote: post #37

What do you all think a company like HP should do when they (finally) realize that they're overstaffed by a big number like 20%, 30% or 50%? One thing I realized working for a huge company and comparing that with my time at their much smaller competitor was that organizations in huge companies become hyperspecialized. This is great during the good times, because everyone is able to squeeze out that last 5% of perform…

I think it tends to happen when big companies have too many mangers per employee but because of all the fiefdom battles cause of that excess the needed trimming never goes right.

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#284

Post by s73v3r »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #6

Wow this is a pretty huge cut. However, I won't lie/sugar coat it -- I think of HP as one of the most stereotypically bad big companies (where you can go in get a job, and almost never get fired, despite not doing very much work), so this is probably a great move for them. I can't imagine it really takes 300,000 people to do what HP does. I'm sure there are departments that do cutting edge hardware/software work at H…

It's not really a great move, because anyone left who is decent is probably going to jump ship due to uncertainty in how the company is going. Simply keeping tabs on the people in the first place, and firing the non-performing ones is a much better way to go.

Not to mention that, when it comes to layoffs like this, it's not always performance that gets looked at. It's just as likely that people making a lot of money, deserved or not, will be laid off, and someone who is less talented or hard working, but cheaper to the company, will be kept.

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#285

Post by nickpsecurity »

Animats wrote: post #58
brudgers wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an HP11C calculator I bought in 1989 I still use. It cost almost $100 back then. The first HP printer I bought was a DeskJet 550c. Made a beautiful whooshing and humming noises. Kept it for more than 10 years. When they discovered a tendency for premature wear on the pickup rollers, HP sent me a maintenance kit: one day it just showed up with instructions. I had a zd7000 laptop in the early oughts. It was pret…

I have an HP11C too, and a LaserJet 5L printer. Both are over 15 years old, in regular use, and work fine. The printer has had two roller replacements, though. That's HP's problem. Great gear, got the job done, didn't have an addictive replacement revenue model like Apple. People ran HP minicomputers for decades because they Just Worked.

Nah, that could've been a solution had they developed a good business model around it. Mainframes come to mind: leased instead of sold. Great margins. HP might have made a really good leasing model that got users continuous improvements on regular refresh cycles with same quality to justify profit margin. Just a thought.

Can't sell heirlooms for commodity prices in a commodity market and do good long-term business. ;)

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#286

Post by raincom »

rqebmm wrote: post #243
FilterSweep wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it hard to believe a matured company, rife with middle management, wouldn't have held those people "mailing it in," so to speak, accountable years ago . Whether they work onsite or remotely, some work is turned in. A handful may fall through the cracks, but it's just that, a handful. Not 30,000, even in a company much bigger.

what if the middle managers are phoning it in?

Many at Cisco do:) But they are managing people, mananging some cost centers, etc. They are contributing in a way, but not for the next $X Billion innovation.

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#287

Post by nickpsecurity »

mjn wrote: post #61
ekianjo wrote: post #7

> The tech company has struggled over the last decade to keep up with changing demands as customers move away from desktop computers. Maybe, but laptop or desktop, HP has been always synonymous with crappy quality and design - among the worst I have ever seen. I just can't wait for them to stop making PCs so that we can get at least half-decent laptops from other manufacturers.

The layoffs here are in their enterprise division, where I don't think quality is the main problem. Two problems instead: the market is generally moving away from high-end enterprise servers towards commodity x86 servers, and, possibly worse, they bet on Itanium as their flagship non-x86 architecture, succeeding PA-RISC. Even when you remove x86 from the picture and just stack it up against competitors like Oracle SP…

Many of us thought it was good for the security market. Fast, reliable, cleaner than x86, and features that boosted security. Market just went with x86. I wonder if that would've been the case even without Itanium's weird VLIW features. If so, should never try something like that again in that market. If not, then maybe a new RISC processor might work. I vote they bring back their i960 in multi-core or team up on SPARC designs given it's open.

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#288

Post by dbbolton »

jfoutz wrote: post #23
joshmn wrote: post #8

My father is a field-service engineer for HP in Midwest (based out of Minneapolis, but he has calls all over from Fargo, ND to Mpls, MN to Madison, WI). He is _the_ go-to for their biggest, most senior, most mission-critical clients. He put together UMN's Alpha setup, is the only guy that USPS will call for help, MNSCU, Best Buy, UHG... basically, anyone with an HP setup (server or printer) that's a Fortune 1000 (and…

Your dad needs to think about the next best 5 guys, and how to pick them up for cheap when the layoffs happen. At his age striking out on his own will seem absolutely terrifying. Work on him for a few months. He must have built up some serious contacts over the years. His pitch is straightforward. HP can't actually support their products anymore, they don't have the staff. He knows the hardware inside and out. Sell s…

What you described sounds an awful lot like the Michael Scott Paper Company, which, ironically, was quite a success (all things considered).

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#289

Post by georgemcbay »

benaiah wrote: post #231
mring33621 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of the possibility of litigation, the logic is very simple: 1) a non-compete indicates that the employee has some skillset or knowledge that the business does not want to lose to a competitor; 2) the involuntary release of that same employee indicates that (1) is no longer true, unless the released employee is fairly compensated for the non-compete period. I would feel pretty comfortable presenting this ar…

> I would feel pretty comfortable presenting this argument to a judge, even without a lawyer present. I'm gonna go ahead and ignore any legal advice you give, then. That's completely bonkers.

Personally I'd still talk to a lawyer (easy for me to say as I have a friend who is a business lawyer), but I wouldn't go so far as to say not having a lawyer here would be "bonkers"

The argument is pretty clear and rational; unless the judge was in the pocket of the company on the other end of the suit (in which case you're fucked anyway), I think representing one's self would be pretty straightforward in this case.

Re: HP to cut 25-30k jobs

#290

Post by dangerboysteve »

jfoutz wrote: post #23
joshmn wrote: post #8

My father is a field-service engineer for HP in Midwest (based out of Minneapolis, but he has calls all over from Fargo, ND to Mpls, MN to Madison, WI). He is _the_ go-to for their biggest, most senior, most mission-critical clients. He put together UMN's Alpha setup, is the only guy that USPS will call for help, MNSCU, Best Buy, UHG... basically, anyone with an HP setup (server or printer) that's a Fortune 1000 (and…

Your dad needs to think about the next best 5 guys, and how to pick them up for cheap when the layoffs happen. At his age striking out on his own will seem absolutely terrifying. Work on him for a few months. He must have built up some serious contacts over the years. His pitch is straightforward. HP can't actually support their products anymore, they don't have the staff. He knows the hardware inside and out. Sell s…

One thing to remember about hardware support is access to replacement hardware in a timely manner. With large support contracts server parts need to be available sometimes within hours of a failure. HP may not play ball. Something to think about.

I also wanted to say people like your Dad are worth their weight in gold. Good hardware tech's are hard to find.

Post reply on HN