Rumor: Samsung Eyes HP's PC Business, Others Do as Well
Rumor: Samsung Eyes HP's PC Business, Others Do as Well
Posted 03/10/2011 at 7:26am
| by Paul Lilly
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Word on the Web is that Hewlett-Packard is seriously considering selling off its PC business, with Samsung emerging as a frontrunner to swoop in and take the reigns. Other reported suitors include Lenovo and Foxconn (otherwise known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, makers of Apple's iPhone and lots of other devices), but no one has been as aggressive as Samsung. Could a sale be imminent?
The takeover talk comes from a Chinese-language Commercial Times report, DigiTimes says. We haven't read the report ourselves, but according to DigiTimes, the report states Samsung will likely offer a higher price than its competitors. However, this isn't the first time takeover talk has swirled Taiwan's IT market.
According to DigiTimes' sources rooted in the upstream component industry, such rumors have been floating around since the fourth quarter of 2010. For whatever reason -- which no one seems privy to -- nothing every happened and there was never any followup talk, until now.
Should HP ultimately decide to sell off its PC business, the timing would be puzzling at best. HP recently stated it plans to implement its webOS platform into all shipping PCs next year in order to attract more developers to kick out apps for webOS, and selling off its PC business would certainly contradict those plans.
Image Credit: HP
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Simoney
July 28, 2011 at 3:54am
It would be a shame if they did sell of the PC division in case there was a change in their computers or the high quality of them. I was told this by some very helpful retail sales assisants the other day. Both were proudly wearing name badges.
malinda_hartwig
June 29, 2011 at 3:52pm
Does anyone know if Samsung products are really as good as they say? I never heard someone complaining but I also never used their products and I was just being curious. I had the chance to contact many Samsung dealers, but I never got something for myself. I only remember going to the dealer center and seeing all the men there being so nice and dedicated, all with their name badges on their chest.
d3v
March 10, 2011 at 9:22am
It would be great for Samsung if this deal went through. They already manufacture RAM, HDDs and LCDs so this is right up their alley.
ShyLinuxGuy
March 10, 2011 at 8:35am
Why would HP get rid of such a good (lucrative) business? HP is the new Dell, it sells more PCs than Dell, in fact. A lot of people I know have an HP (or Compaq) because they're highly competitive on price and quality (sans slimline PCs--parts are 80% proprietary-- and the slightly older dv laptop series). HP business PCs are similar in quality and durability to IBMs under IBM.
I'm hoping that HP doesn't pull an IBM and ditch their PC division. IBM ditching ThinkPad, ThinkStation, Intellistation---that was stupid, and IBM isn't a stupid company.
I'm looking forward to webOS on PCs, though.
big_montana
March 10, 2011 at 9:53am
Sorry, but HP quality is not all that great. Is it better then Dell? Certainly, but whose isn't. Also, IBM sold off their pc business to the company they contracted to build them originally, Lenovo. Samsung does not build computers for HP, like Lenovo did for IBM at the time. The Thinkpad quality has not slipped at all, and in fact has gotten better, as well as becoming a profitable company (the main reason IBM sold off their division, as it was bleeding red ink). HP's quality is no where close to that of when IBM was IBM or even Lenovo's today, as Apple and Lenovo are the top two rated companies quality wise. If Samsung were to purchase HP's business, I would rule them out next year when I refresh all of my hardware, as the only two I would give a serious look at would be Lenovo and Dell. Samsung has minimal experience building computers, and the changeover would affect quality (as it did Lenovo their first year) delivery, r&d, and support. Selling to Samsung would be a stupid decision, selling off a profitable division like HP's PC division is would be totally insane. I do not expect this to happen, but if HP does sell, I hope an experienced computer manufacturer like Lenovo is the purchaser, then they can straighten out HP's quality and support issues.
Silent_Raider
March 10, 2011 at 9:41am
This makes no sense for HP. You are right in that they are sitting in the same spot Dell sat in during the late 90s when they were offering superior quality and less expensive PCs to overthrow the likes of Gateway. Dell has become overpriced with ok builds, and HP is the only company really competing with them right now.
They would be left with servers, support, and printers? Doesn't seem to make too much sense and I hope it's not true.
big_montana
March 10, 2011 at 10:10am
People focus to much on overall market share. Lenov still owns the enterprise market with a 21.8% share, followed by Dell at 19.2%. Also, in Asia where Acer makes it home, Lenovo is the number one seller. In fact Acer is closing in on HP for the top spot in market share, yet HP and Dell cannot compete with Acer in Asia, but the only company that can is Lenovo. Why? Quality (something that acer, HP and Dell have not been known for ina very long time), price, and unlike other tech companies, Lenovo has no desire to be Apple, it is content to just be Lenovo. For Lenovo, ugly works. For a company that makes its name in the enterprise, delivering the best-looking products on the market isn’t nearly as important as delivering the most functional products on the market.
someone87
March 10, 2011 at 8:16am
What else (other than servers and support) does HP sell/offer? It seems like this is their bread and butter.
Weird....
d3v
March 10, 2011 at 9:19am
In my country HP is famous for its printers. Maybe they want to focus on smart phones and tablets instead of full blow computers.
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