HP’s problem is that the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing. Cloud computing vs servers. x86 servers vs Itaniums. In the big picture toner and ink sales are weaker due to handheld computing and social media. Why print a document or a picture out when it can be in the cloud?
Without the income from toner and ink HP has a very big problem.
As for servers, HP has the same problem as Cisco, Dell and others. The move to the cloud or in house virtual servers has created a vast glut of used equipment.
Someone will write an interesting book about how a company that produced the 16C calculator went on to utterly fail in the handheld computing sector.
>Why print a document or a picture out when it can be in the cloud?
Hardcopies are explicitly protected under the fourth amendment; if you have to appear in court the confiscation of your papers would be grounds for felony charges of the involved officers of the court. (Plus, it seems, sometimes that hardcopies have more prestige/perceived-validity.)