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The stock market hates HP's new strategy

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Re: The stock market hates HP's new strategy

#71

Post by fauigerzigerk »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #52
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a Wall St. view that completely misses the point. You could look at it very differently. The new CEO is making some bold moves to undo a bunch of bad decisions his predecessors made. Buying Palm was nonsense. HP was never the company to make it work. Contrary to that, Autonomy, one of the best software companies in the world, is a good fit for HP's enterprise strategy. Spinning off the PC business is very like…

Isn't it better to buy stock in the midst of the panic?

The best time to buy is when a panic subsides. It's better to miss the first 10% of a recovery than to lose 20% catching falling knives. That's what I have learned painfully in 2008. (I just wish hadn't forgotten it by 2011 :)

Re: The stock market hates HP's new strategy

#72

Post by cube13 »

prayag wrote: post #59
Silhouette wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, I don't think you appreciate the scale of huge companies and the requirements for the software and suppliers that help to manage them. If HP or IBM or SAP or Oracle wanted to do what, say, Dropbox does, they would throw effectively unlimited funding at the problem until it was solved. They might not even bother to market the result publicly, to avoid diluting their brand, but if they chose to do so, the…

>If HP or IBM or SAP or Oracle wanted to do what, say, Dropbox does, they would throw effectively unlimited funding at the >problem until it was solved. And if there is one thing we've learned from Microsoft etc. is that throwing unlimited funding at a problem fixes it.

>And if there is one thing we've learned from Microsoft etc. is that throwing unlimited funding at a problem fixes it.

The main problem for Dropbox is simply scale. You, as a service provider, need to keep up with the storage and bandwidth requirements. The only way to deal with that is through buying more hardware/Cloud CPU time and bandwidth. If you're Dropbox, that means that you might need to get more funding. If you're IBM or HP, and they've made it a priority, it's much easier to get what you need.

Dropbox isn't really all that special from a technical perspective at this point. Any of the large tech firms can solve it easily, and Apple, Amazon and Google have all come out with services that do basically the same thing as Dropbox.

Re: The stock market hates HP's new strategy

#73

Post by Silhouette »

prayag wrote: post #59
Silhouette wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, I don't think you appreciate the scale of huge companies and the requirements for the software and suppliers that help to manage them. If HP or IBM or SAP or Oracle wanted to do what, say, Dropbox does, they would throw effectively unlimited funding at the problem until it was solved. They might not even bother to market the result publicly, to avoid diluting their brand, but if they chose to do so, the…

>If HP or IBM or SAP or Oracle wanted to do what, say, Dropbox does, they would throw effectively unlimited funding at the >problem until it was solved. And if there is one thing we've learned from Microsoft etc. is that throwing unlimited funding at a problem fixes it.

Well, how much software have you paid for lately to help view your files and directories in a graphical tree, defragment your disks, compress the data on them, or scan that data for viruses? A few years ago, all of those things were available through a variety of commercial tools. Microsoft basically eliminated those entire industries when it provided a decent alternative built in to Windows.

In any case, your comment is a cheap shot. Microsoft have a relatively strong track record when it comes to establishing footholds in new markets, even if they've been slow to see the opportunity at first, by committing vast resources and running loss leaders for a while if necessary to establish their product. They also have some of the best R&D in the business, thanks in no small part to hiring some of the smartest people and putting them in top class facilities.

Re: The stock market hates HP's new strategy

#74

Post by VladRussian »

guelo wrote: post #24

Another MBA type killing a great tech company. I don't understand why it doesn't occur to these boards that engineers/technologists/innovators should lead tech companies. For some reason they can't imagine that technology can save a technology company. It wasn't some genius business maneuver that turned Apple into the biggest company in the world, it was genius technology.

>Another MBA type killing a great tech company.

Fiorina killed it many years ago. Even though she is long gone, the company has been infested with the drones since then. The company will of course linger for decades as an enterprise software/hardware provider. As exciting as SAP.

Re: The stock market hates HP's new strategy

#75

Post by [deleted] »

VladRussian wrote: post #74
guelo wrote: post #24

Another MBA type killing a great tech company. I don't understand why it doesn't occur to these boards that engineers/technologists/innovators should lead tech companies. For some reason they can't imagine that technology can save a technology company. It wasn't some genius business maneuver that turned Apple into the biggest company in the world, it was genius technology.

>Another MBA type killing a great tech company. Fiorina killed it many years ago. Even though she is long gone, the company has been infested with the drones since then. The company will of course linger for decades as an enterprise software/hardware provider. As exciting as SAP.

[deleted]

Re: The stock market hates HP's new strategy

#76

Post by fauigerzigerk »

defen wrote: post #63
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a Wall St. view that completely misses the point. You could look at it very differently. The new CEO is making some bold moves to undo a bunch of bad decisions his predecessors made. Buying Palm was nonsense. HP was never the company to make it work. Contrary to that, Autonomy, one of the best software companies in the world, is a good fit for HP's enterprise strategy. Spinning off the PC business is very like…

> Autonomy, one of the best software companies in the world, By what metric? From my perspective they are reviled by their clients and their own (engineer) employees.

They sell a lot of software to those unhappy clients, very similar to other hated companies like Oracle.

Re: The stock market hates HP's new strategy

#77

Post by justincormack »

_delirium wrote: post #62
wheels wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the future of business software is gradually being built by Salesforce, Google, Dropbox What color is the sky on your planet? Enterprise software -- the largest software market by a long-shot -- is not scared of ... Dropbox. That's like saying that cars will be wiped out by lawnmowers. The statement doesn't make any sense. Nor does using Facebook and MySpace as examples of enterprise infrastructures. They're medium…

I mostly agree, but Google Apps for Business is slowly chipping away at some of the market that 5 years ago might've bought an enterprise "email solution", especially at the lower end of the market, like universities, state governments, and medium-sized businesses. Less success among very large businesses, but a few have adopted it.

Chipping away from the bottom takes time. But it will happen. Do you see the big enterprise software companies doing serious innovation in their products? The stuff that they built was often fairly cutting edge when they built it, but that was years ago, and those companies are sales driven not innovation driven, like Oracle. Of course they buy in newer more innovative technology, but then try to merge it with the legacy.

Re: The stock market hates HP's new strategy

#78

Post by tjogin »

aresant wrote: post #10

Barron's nails it: a) "decision to cease all webOS devices (including the TouchPad) a mere 48 days after the launch" - Leadership doesn't know what they're doing w/acquisitions. b) "expensive acquisition of Autonomy" - $10b to jump into a new market via acquisition which we just proved we're not good at. c) "material layoffs" and "talent drain over the next 12-24 months' - I believe this. Current talent bails. Changi…

I think the most interesting and least talked about thing is b) "$10b to jump into a new market via acquisition which we just proved we're not good at."

HP has never been good at software. Hands up, who fondly remembers a nice HP software experience? Who remembers a hair-pulling awful one?

(And before you say webOS; please, webOS is nicely designed, but engineering wise it's bug ridden and terrible.)

Re: The stock market hates HP's new strategy

#80

Post by justincormack »

Silhouette wrote: post #46
justincormack wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is what they think. MySpace bought HP servers, but Facebook doesnt. That market will commoditise too, as cloud that uses software not hardware redundancy doesnt need the high margin features. And the future of business software is gradually being built by Salesforce, Google, Dropbox and so on. The landscape will change drastically. While there is innovation in clients, owning a platform is still part of a viable…

Respectfully, I don't think you appreciate the scale of huge companies and the requirements for the software and suppliers that help to manage them. If HP or IBM or SAP or Oracle wanted to do what, say, Dropbox does, they would throw effectively unlimited funding at the problem until it was solved. They might not even bother to market the result publicly, to avoid diluting their brand, but if they chose to do so, the…

They have no interest in doing what Dropbox does now. It is not a threat. But its a beginning. Dropbox is raising a lot of money to go after some aspect of the enterprise market. From niches will come the important profitable software of the future. Start with revenue from small businesses. SAP and Oracle are simply not innovating in that way.
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