Insiders say there is one company looking at the HP PC line
And Palm sales don't track the PR line
Aug 19, 2011 in Channel, Desktop, Finance, Humor, Microprocessors, Mobile, Opinion, Rumors, Servers
Being in Palo Alto for Hot Chips 23, you run in to a lot of people who know things about big stories like the HP PC fire sale and Palm knifing. The stories that they tell tend to be very different from the very confused PR line.
Short story, HP killed Palm/WebOS after a very short life, and then didn’t officially confirm it is selling it’s PC business. The whole debacle was messaged in a way that would make PR people very happy, as long as they were working for an HP competitor. Internally, I can’t think of a way it could have been done worse.
That said, the interesting bit is the sale of the PC business. This move is not a stretch of the imagination for anyone that has been paying attention, the PC business is low margin, and most companies are looking to other areas to boost their revenue and more importantly, their profit margins. Fair enough. HP shedding their PC line was fairly inevitable.
Any sale of such a business means there is also a buyer. Hopefully. At this time, HP isn’t saying anything officially about a buyer, nor is any potential suitor. According to SemiAccurate’s sources, there is one and only one name being floated, Samsung. The sources would not say anything more, just that Samsung has been floating internally for weeks since a recent reorg. This sale wasn’t a snap decision, it has been in planning for a long time.
On top of that, Samsung hired several key PC execs from HP in the recent past. While this isn’t definitive, it does point to interest by the Korean giant. The fact that HP’s PC and laptop business would nicely plug a gaping hole in the Samsung vertical monolith may be entirely coincidental, but it is worth thinking about. Insiders on both sides are not talking specifics, but the synergies are obvious.
The other bit is far less important, but does make you wonder. Sources in sunny California are saying that the Palm/WebOS tablets were actually not selling badly, and in fact were selling quite well. Given the acceptable sales, and the short life span, it makes you really wonder why the line was canceled. The OS was arguably the best out there, warts and all, but wasn’t being supported nearly as well as HP was saying. The PR screed does not match the purported facts, at least if you have access to the real numbers. Something is fishy here, very very fishy.S|A
27 Responses to “Insiders say there is one company looking at the HP PC line”
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Aug 21, 2011
[...] or RIM. Maybe its the silver lining of an already too dark cloud, or, perhaps, something more??: Insiders say there is one company looking at the HP PC line | SemiAccurate __________________ "The more I learn, the more I realize just how little I really do [...]
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Aug 21, 2011
[...] here is yet another theory, from a source supposedly based on information from an insider at HP: Insiders say there is one company looking at the HP PC line | SemiAccurate __________________ "The more I learn, the more I realize just how little I really do [...]
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Aug 21, 2011
[...] Insiders say there is one company looking at the HP PC line | SemiAccurate Just fyi. It's quite possible; not saying for sure, but, it works. __________________ "The more I learn, the more I realize just how little I really do know!" -Albert Einstein [...]
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Aug 21, 2011
[...] reporting Tablets were Selling From SemiAccurate Insiders say there is one company looking at the HP PC line | SemiAccurate The other bit is far less important, but does make you wonder. Sources in sunny California are [...]
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Aug 19, 2011
[...] thinking about. Insiders on both sides are not talking specifics, but the synergies are obvious Insiders say there is one company looking at the HP PC line | SemiAccurate seems like hopefully samsung is taking the helm in development for [...]
The problem is that HP is currently run by a German. And that Germans have no clue how to run a large organization or a government is currently demonstrated pretty well in many occasions.
Nokia is currently run by an American. Same comments as above apply…
Stupid incoming CEOs are not limited to one nationality.
Actually, Elop is Canadian. Otherwise agree.
I agree with Charlie, something doesn’t seem right. Either someone in the company made a quick decision without asking anyone else, or there’s another player here. We’ll see if this is Samsung’s doing soon.
The HP PC biz? what exactly is that? Does HP make or own the IP to one single component that goes into a PC? Does HP make any PC software that real customers care about?
Once again, another junk tech story about another failing dinosaur.
WebOS went up against Apple, Google, and MS (Windows 8 may not be here yet, but it might as well be). Only a madman or a tech site shill would believe that a very distant fourth player in any market could survive, if it needed the success of the market leading brands.
If HP was worth a damn, its divisions would have merged with external players, rather than being dumped or sold off AFTER HP announced they were worthless.
Only complete idiots thought Larrabee and Meego would give Intel anything but abject humiliation. Same goes for HP’s mobile and PC projects. Tech sites exist to take PR goodies in the form of favours and/or money, and then tell their readers that lame horses are championship thoroughbreds.
And even old champions, with many past glories, are eventually too old to race, as you will all see with the dying x86 architecture (soon to visit the same glue factory as the 8080, z80, 6502, 68000, MIPS, powerPC etc).
MIPS and PowerPC are far from dead you know…
HP R.I.P
As a first generation product, Touchpad is not a bad product. I have one Pre Plus and one Touchpad. They are great.
HP ex-CEO bought Palm. Current HP CEO is an enterprise software man, I doubt if he knows how to run a consumer devices business.
He was recruited to turn HP into a service company. Since then, all know that PSG will eventually be spin-off. But CEO’s implementation & PR is very ugly. I doubt his capability in running such large US corporation. His days should be numbered and so as the board members. No visions and no polished.
The CEO is not interested (does not know how) in running WebOS devices and PC. He did not support the division and then let the sales figures from Bestbuy proves that his decision in cutting TP/Pre is valid.
Bestbuy poor sales news appeared just before the earning conference.
I believe that it is a planned suicide of the whole WebOS team. All are orchestrated.
Damages are made to HP’s reputation to its customers and channels. Who will buy any new products from HP? Who will carry them and sell them? HP better sell the PSG quickly. The valuation of PSG will depreciate quickly as time passes.
TP/Pre are the only devices released in recent years that show HP is still innovating in consumer area. Sad.
Who wants to buy their products, anyway, after the nVidia “Bad-Bump” fiasco. To be fairer to nV, i should say, after the fiasco that passed as a reaction to the nV “Bad-Bump” catastrophe.
Charlie had all-but written (& well-written, i might add) his Doctoral-thesis on the subject. Look them up sometime, it makes for interesting reading.
In today’s day & age, if a company manufactures a product yet refuses to take responsibility for defective goods, accept a settlement package from the at-fault vendor, then proceed to virtually give your invaluable customers a ‘golden-shower’, don’t expect these same people to buy even the slightest of your wares.
Other than the truck-loads of eWaste generated, not to mention the truck-loads of disgruntled former-customers, the people that really suffered, were the lowly employees, and contractors. Nobody ever mentions the economic fallout from the largest of companies, failing to live up to any ‘spirit’ of an agreement.
EPIC FAIL: HP YOU SUCK!
Companies burn people, but that doesn’t mean you should hold a grudge a long time afterward.
Dell burned me with the Dell Dimension 4600 series desktop. By putting in the cheapest, worst power supply they could find that would die THE DAY after the warranty expires (or even before), Dell burned a ton of customers, and refused to even speak with most of them. It was a customer service disaster, and the 4600 went down as one of the most unreliable PCs of all time (google it).
Nowadays, they do better. Dell laptops are actually among the most reliable. They’ve learned not to put people through “Dell Hell” as it’s called.
Dell consumer laptops suck. They are garbage. Their business laptops are well-built.
Good point about the CEO. I really was looking forward to buy one WebOS tab someday, also feeling bad for the whole team behind this fine platform:( They could endure Itanium for such loooooong period but thought it would be better to kill Touchpad this early! I hope someone competent enough buys it and provides a third option beside Apple and Android.
“We’re not buying the consumer hardware division unless you drop out of the tablet space”
“But we just got here… I just bought that OS.. dagnammit!”
As long as they put AMD/ARM only chips(samsung) and ditch intel for good then it’s a good move.
So Samsung is following Lenovo, who can swallow Dell? I’ll predict it will be an Indian firm.
Umm, unlikely.
Unless you mean Dell itself by that Indian firm :D
On another note, all those guys leaving PC market are leaving because Dell’s pricing and margin model has become de-facto the standard…
An employee buyout?
WebOS tablets selling well?
http://allthingsd.com/20110816/ouchpad-best-buy-sitting-on-a-pile-of-unsold-hp-tablets/
If those numbers are correct, HP’s masterplan of becoming a major tablet maker went completely wrong. If true, it’s no wonder they’re giving up
Perhaps, with the HP PSG purchase, Samsung will subsume WebOS features and IPR into its Bada OS for mobile devices and keep the PC business to sustain its semiconductor business.
american product lines are bought for song, finally Hp has saleable product, on WW Scale. Weight light, value good, for thePEOPLE.
Fx me. certainly llano is popular on retail level, Fx be shoe in. T-?30….
drashek LiftOff….
Very interesting. I was wondering why they ax’d the tablet line so quickly… I think that was quicker than Microsoft ax’d the Kin!
Anyway, when does BD come out??? I thought it was supposed to be yesterday… I actually woke up excited, like a little kid (hell, or adult me) on Christmas morning.
Charlie’s story said that Bulldozer would be shipping this week, but said nothing about the launch date. Companies usually start shipping parts before launch. This is how AMD shipped Llanos in Q2. Hopefully BD is shipping right now, as leaked benchmarks should start rolling in from these shipped parts.