HP Reportedly Prepping $10 Billion for Software Company, Plans to Sell Off PC Business
HP Reportedly Prepping $10 Billion for Software Company, Plans to Sell Off PC Business
Posted 08/18/2011 at 9:55am
| by Paul Lilly
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The rumor mill spun a wild one back in March of this year when reports surfaced that Hewlett Packard was considering selling off its PC business. Quoting a Commercial Times report, news and rumor site DigiTimes said HP was shopping around its PC division to the likes of Lenovo, Foxconn, and Samsung. On hindsight, it wasn't such a wild rumor after all, and before the day is done, HP might be totally invested in software.
Bloomberg is reporting that HP is getting ready to announce a $10 billion buyout of Autonomy Corp., an enterprise software firm with three separate headquarters (Cambridge, United Kingdom, and San Francisco). That's a huge investment, but it's only half of the story. According to Bloomberg, HP plans to spin-off its PC business, which would indicate it found a buyer after all.
No other details are known at this time, such as who that buyer might be or what terms will be attached to the deal, but we won't have to wait long to find out. HP is supposed to report earnigs later today at 4:00PM EST.
Image Credit: thevarguy.com
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misha573
August 19, 2011 at 7:43am
I'm not sure that HP will win in this regard. But, imo, it is quite clear what they're aiming for. They are manoeuvring themselves into a position to compete with the likes of Oracle and IBM.
With Oracle's recent acquisition of Sun, they've positioned themselves as direct competitors to HP's enterprise hardware. But they have and advantage over HP in that they can offer stack solutions natively now (exadata). HP can't, and I guess HP wants to change that.
Whether or not they will succeed...well...who knows.
Keith E. Whisman
August 18, 2011 at 8:37pm
Well they are fantastic about one thing, they arn't Packard Bell. In fact, compared to Pac Bell they are 1st Class.
big_montana
August 18, 2011 at 5:36pm
Gawd! I do hope HP does not purchase Autonomy,as they are the providers of our document management system - Filesite. If there is one thing HP does worse then create a print driver that works, or make a reliable laptop that does not overheat and burn out your system board within a year, it is customer service. It is the absolutely worst of any company out there, even worse then Symantec enterprise support.
praetor_alpha
August 18, 2011 at 12:41pm
Isn't HP the world's largest PC vendor? Who would want anything PC now that everyone's caught up in the iRevolution?
/sarcasm
JohnP
August 18, 2011 at 12:03pm
Anyone hear if the PC spinoff will include the printer side of the market too?
saiforigis
August 19, 2011 at 1:49am
HP will continue to make printers due to the large amount of profit the division makes.
tornato7
August 18, 2011 at 10:53am
I've always said that HP makes great hardware but shitty software... They are going to fail.
Neel Chauhan
August 19, 2011 at 4:45am
Truth: HP Hardware SUCKS! Why? Because HP is unreliable.One school near my home uses HP computers to save money but every other day one went for repairs, and half of their computers have dead DVD-RW drives.
HP is the number one PC vendor. Why? Because HP is cheap and is the easiest to pick up. Go to a Wal-Mart and you can pick one up, instead of waiting for a computer from a reliable brand to come in the mail. Not to mention competitors like Dell and Acer also suck.
These days more people started using Macs and Apple mainly because the whole world is crazy about Apple products. Even if apple releases a toilet, people will buy it.
But anyways, HP will fail
I'm Done
praetor_alpha
August 18, 2011 at 12:40pm
Their enterprise software is the worst. One place I worked for used HP Quality Center to log internal software issues. Completely ignores user interface conventions, intuitiveness, and usability. And oh gosh, is it ugly and slow.
DogPatch1149
August 18, 2011 at 4:01pm
GAH! We use OpenView Service Center 6.2 where I work...it's even worse than CA Unicenter, and that's pretty damned bad.
ascendant
August 18, 2011 at 11:52am
I agree. They should be keeping the PC building part of things and ditching the printer side.
ak lj
August 18, 2011 at 11:23am
Agreed. I've been very happy with HP laptops, but anything to do with they're software has been a lesson in futility. They're printer software is the biggest bloated mess out there!
Captain_Steve
August 18, 2011 at 11:28am
Even in the year 2011 I find it somewhat magical every time my printer works on the first try without me fighting it tooth and nail.
DasHellMutt
August 18, 2011 at 2:47pm
Hmm I would too considering I've never experienced that. In my experience, all printers are patently evil and never work on the first try. The sad part is they always worked on DOS through a parallel port. Then Windows came along and they started having to write drivers and things got tricky. Then USB came along and broke printing entirely. Now they're trying to graft on another notoriously unreliable technology: wireless. Hopefully we stop using paper soon before we get to the stage where printers are completely non-functional objects.
Oh ya and HP software has always been ass with their PCs not far behind.
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