i guess hp learned NOTHING from the Fiorina fiasco...
Posted on 08/12/2012 1:55:01 PM PDT by Hojczyk
Hewlett-Packard Co. appears to be at a point of no return. Either Meg Whitman fixes everything wrong with the company or we may see the end of H-P.
Thus we are about to witness the greatest comeback in history, which will set Whitman up as one of the greatest chief executives ever, or we’ll witness the incomprehensible.
The incomprehensible is the end of the progenitor of the entire Silicon Valley mythos. This is THE company that began in a garage and allowed other companies to begin in a garage, all in the Palo Alto- Menlo Park area.
Yes, like a monument to abject failure, Solyndra stands out on the road. All part of a dead love affair with all things green.
This is what happened to suck the energy out of Silicon Valley. Elsewhere most of the world’s lesser venture capitalists were throwing their funds into MEMs (micro-electrical-mechanical systems). The Silicon Valley boys were going after trendy “green” inventions.
Billions of dollars that could have been used to create the next generation of integrated circuits or a unique new real technology invention instead went into green dead-ends. This includes batteries and battery cars as well as solar with ideas such as Solyndra.
When the Chinese came in with older solar technology that was simply cheaper, none of our new ideas could compete, if they ever could. It was over instantly.
The green thing began with Obama and the emergence of numerous green funds, many looking for government handouts. The ludicrous appearance of Al Gore as a venture capitalist working with Kleiner, Perkins highlights the errors.
After witnessing what has happened in the last few years, especially with H-P, I do not have high hopes.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
>> When the Chinese came in with older solar technology that was simply cheaper, none of our new ideas could compete... It was over instantly... Al Gore as a venture capitalist working with Kleiner, Perkins highlights the errors.
heh.
This isn’t some wet-behind-the-ears pundit pontificating, either.
John Dvorak KNOWS.
Dvorak has been writing on technology since the early PC era of the 1980s. If he is based in the Bay area, he has seen quite a bit of the history of Silicon Valley.
Not sure what HP’s status is, but I just purchased a laptop from them that blows me away. It’s my second HP.
I don’t have to have the latest and greatest, but this is an amazing machine, and I’d recommend it others without hesitation. I’ve never had a problem with the HP it replaces either.
It was purchased through Costco’s web shopping resource.
The only downside, and even that was handled very smoothly, it shipped from Hong Kong.
I didn’t realize that was going to happen when I ordered it.
As I recall, Meg Whitman almost killed Hewlett Packard during her first stint there. So, now she’s supposed to rescue it?
The whole ‘green enery - green jobs’ thing has been just another instrument to suck the oxygen out of the American economy. The architects are all having a big laugh at our expense.
Dvorak, ass that he is, is occasionally right on the money. This is one of those times.
SV bump
Yikes !! I’m sitting at an H-P right now.
The article does drift away from the subject, but it really makes me wonder how any Lib techies could ever dream of another four years of Obama, and I know there’s a lot of Lib techies out there. Talk about slitting your own throat.
If you follow Moore's law 18 months rule on technology turnover think how many rounds of American re-investments "seed" capital have been sucked into "green smoke" dead ends ..
Add in the government weight drawing money down these holes and America technology lead evaporates in a blink of an eye...
Capital is the blood of an economy ...Americas economy dies when its Capital bleeds out ...and "green" is a bleeding wound
Carly killed HP.
“I don’t have to have the latest and greatest, but this is an amazing machine, and I’d recommend it others without hesitation.”
**
I wouldn’t... I was part of the original class lawsuit against HP in 2007 because their HP DV6 series were lemons due to faulty chips. When HP falls, I’ll be the first to celebrate.
I had heard that it didn’t turn out very good.
She sure ran with it when she wanted to be the Governess of California though.
Can anyone point me to a Dvorak column of - say - two years ago, in which he predicted that Solyndra would be a boondoggle.
I was there a couple of months ago, by the way. Stayed in Milpitas. Saw the giant Solyndra plant by the side of 880. It's not the only one, though. There's at least one more big Solyndra office building in Milpitas that's looking for a tenant. Along with what looked to me to be about 15% of all the office space in Silicon Valley (at least at the southern end of it) judging from the "Rent Me" signs I observed when driving around.
Amazing number of Chinese people there, that's for sure.
I’m sorry to hear that. Don’t blame you one bit either.
You know, it’s hard to think of a computer company going under that sells literally thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of them on the shopping networks.
Hope you’ve found a better company’s products to run with.
Take care.
Wasn’t just the DV6 series. It was the entire DV series period.
They all had faulty video. They would overheat, then break loose the solder joints from the motherboard.
HP’s fix. replace the motherboard with ANOTHER faulty motherboard. Un-frigginbelievable.
They paid out the ass on that one. And they should have.
i guess hp learned NOTHING from the Fiorina fiasco...
The purchase of EDS is hurting them. They took a huge write down. Leadership was in shambles with Mark Hurd’s exit.
One thing that is not mentioned enough is constant lawsuits. These CEOs hate each other: Ellison, Jobs, Whitman, Carly.
The HP name will never go away, but the prospect of growth will.
As for Solyndra, in the real world they would have to demonstrate scalability and cost for alot less than $500 million. When the government is paying, these limitations are removed.
When HP started in the 30’s their concepts of ideas and how to treat employees was brilliant and nearly unheard of.
It was a fantastic company to be part of....great products and fantastic employee relations.
They had no debt, extremely low turn over, exemplary HR staff that treated employees well.
Each building almost operated as a small company, great loyalty.
I knew people who had other opportunities but couldn’t bring themselves to take other jobs, that’s how much people loved working there.
When Carly was made CEO she killed them.
The day she was fired, the employees celebrated, but her firing happened to late, they were already dead.
Rated one of the worst companies to work for. I used to work for Digital Equipment Corp and HP killed everything that was good. Itanium, Alpha, OSF/1, the list is huge. They shipped all of VMS engineering to India, know a LOT of people that got effected by that.
HP-SUX!
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