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Dark days at HP with 16000 jobs on the line
While Hewlett-Packard boss Meg Whitman is sticking to her line that the company's recovery remains on track, there's little sign of a turnaround in the company's second quarter result.
Whitman has already lopped 34,000 jobs from the company and warns another 16,000 are on the line. Most of the jobs to go are in the company's troubled services division.
Overall sales remain flat declining one percent. Revenues have declined for 11 quarters in a row. Profit is up just one percent on the same period a year earlier. That's not much gain for a lot of pain.
There are bright spots, even if they aren't in line with strategy goals.
Despite Whitman's plan calling for less emphasis on PCs, HP personal systems revenue is up seven percent on the year. The total number of units shifted climbed 10 percent: desktop and laptop unit sales were each up six percent. Most of that was in commercial systems with consumer sales falling two percent.
Printing and enterprise revenues are down a little, while enterprise services revenue fell seven percent. Software was flat.
Three months on an HP is still claiming it is only half way through the turnaround programme. With little success to show for a lot of turmoil it can't be long now before shareholders start calling for Whitman's head.
To be fair to HP, most of its rivals are
in a similar spot, the
enterprise hardware business looks doomed and the
potential alternative markets, such as the cloud, offer low
margins and most of the territory is already staked out. My
2012 advice to Whitman still applies.
Bill Bennett
Freelance journalist.
Auckland-based Bill Bennett writes technology and business stories that are directly relevant to New Zealand readers.
His emphasis is on telecommunications, but he also covers other aspects of technology and business. You can find his features in the New Zealand Herald and hear him regularly on RNZ Nine to Noon and the NZ Tech Podcast.
Bennett's The Download Weekly newsletter is published every Friday. You can sign up for it here.
If you want to support his work, you can make a donation to his PressPatron account.
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