Valleywag
great moments in customer service
Posts Tagged “
Hp
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great moments in customer service
Tim the IT Guy
How to sell your company's secrets and not get caught
This week, the HP vice president indicted for leaking trade secrets from IBM, his former employeer, pleaded guilty. Dude, UR DOIN IT RONG. Atul Malhotra allegedly emailed the goods to a coworker, drawing a big red arrow back to his own forehead. Ready to cash in on your inside info? Follow this six-step plan. More »
Wall Street Journal cuts hit tech beat
Even as the New York Times staffs up its technology bureau, the Wall Street Journal is cutting back — at least on some of its higher-priced names. Among the names of layoff victims supplied by a tipster: Jason Fry, online Real Time columnist, and George Anders, author of Perfect Enough, the definitive business biography of former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.
Even as the New York Times staffs up its technology bureau, the Wall Street Journal is cutting back — at least on some of its higher-priced names. Among the names of layoff victims supplied by a tipster: Jason Fry, online Real Time columnist, and George Anders, author of Perfect Enough, the definitive business biography of former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.
breakdowns
Employees selling security holes to black-hats
Tech workers looking for cash are selling information about vulnerabilities in their own companies' products, according to a report in Fast Company by investigative journalist Adam Penenberg. (For the Olds, Penenberg is the guy who busted hacker-hoax writer Stephen Glass ten years ago. Yes, ten years. We are OLDZ.) Penenberg got Hewlett-Packard to admit they'd been compromised by "a rogue employee in France," then tracked down the guy he believes bought the info: An instructor at Paris's Institut SupĂ©rieur d'Electronique. More »
PCs, not printers, boost HP results
Sales at Hewlett-Packard grew 11 percent, year-over-year in the second quarter, to $28.26 billion. Notebook sales jumped 31 percent, while earnings in its cash-cow printer unit were flat. [WSJ]
Sales at Hewlett-Packard grew 11 percent, year-over-year in the second quarter, to $28.26 billion. Notebook sales jumped 31 percent, while earnings in its cash-cow printer unit were flat. [WSJ]
bad ideas
Robotic voices to express HP's disgust with customers
Its pretexting heyday may be over, but HP is apparently still not adverse to a little telephone trickery, as its pending patent for Text-to-Speech Conversion with Associated Mood Tag shows. In it, HP touts the use of VoiceXML to have a fake 18-year-old salesgirl register her disgust with customers who don't respond to offers.
ronald rittenmeyer
Can mamby-pamby HP handle its new Texan?
The culture at Hewlett-Packard, according to the Wall Street Journal, "is considered more of a consensus-building style." You know — lots of meetings and executives who give time and consideration to each other's very important ideas. Meanwhile, the man who runs EDS, the tech-services outfit HP is buying for $13 billion, likes to fire people who don't agree with him. He's Ronald Rittenmeyer, "a high-control, results-oriented, very focused leader," a rival CEO told the Journal. Rittenmeyer, this CEO said, "is exactly what you want in a senior leader" — whether HP colleagues like it or not.
deals
HP-EDS merger to reunite Marc Andreessen's LoudCloud
Hewlett-Packard has software to automate datacenters; EDS has datacenters which need automating. That's part of the logic behind HP's $13.9 billion acquisition of the tech-services business. The deal proves that Marc Andreessen is prescient. After he sold Netscape to AOL, Andreessen launched LoudCloud, a website-hosting business powered by advanced software. In the wake of the bust, Andreessen sold the hosting part of the business to EDS, and relaunched the company as Opsware, the name of its automation software. HP bought Opsware last year. While reuniting LoudCloud's constituent parts isn't the reason why Mark Hurd is doing the deal, he is proving that Andreessen's early vision of combining software and services was on the money. Timing is everything.
acquisitions
HP acquires EDS for $12.6 billion, creating a monolith of profitable boredom
Hewlett-Packard will acquire Electronic Data Systems (EDS) for $25 a share, doubling the size of HP's services unit and making it the second largest company in the space after IBM. Both company boards have unanimously approved the deal, which should close in the second half of next year. [WSJ]
acquisitions
HP moving to acquire EDS in $12 billion-plus deal
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Hewlett-Packard is nearing a deal to buy EDS for $12 billion to $13 billion. Having set Dell back on its heels in PC sales, HP is now moving to challenge IBM. As computers become commodities, the money is in installing and maintaining them, not marking up Intel's microprocessors and Microsoft's operating system for a thin margin. One wonders if Michael Dell is gutsy enough to launch a rival bid — or, with HP now worth three times as much as Dell, if he can really afford to.
Apple hires HP's top acquisitions lawyer
Could Apple be preparing to spend its $18 billion cash hoard on acquisitions? Apple has hired Charles Charnas, an 18-year HP veteran who oversaw the $25 billion merger between Compaq and HP, to run Apple's intellectual-property licensing and strategic acquisitions. But don't count on Apple making any Yahoo-sized purchases. The company prefers to spend its cash in small amounts, buying talent and patents instead of large businesses which require integration. [9 to 5 Mac]
Could Apple be preparing to spend its $18 billion cash hoard on acquisitions? Apple has hired Charles Charnas, an 18-year HP veteran who oversaw the $25 billion merger between Compaq and HP, to run Apple's intellectual-property licensing and strategic acquisitions. But don't count on Apple making any Yahoo-sized purchases. The company prefers to spend its cash in small amounts, buying talent and patents instead of large businesses which require integration. [9 to 5 Mac]
r&d
HP Labs Director Prith Banerjee told the WSJ yesterday his division will cut the number of projects it is pursuing from about 150 to as few as 20. The 600 researchers will work on technologies for managing increased information flow, Internet-based computing, moving information between devices, environmental sustainability and better understanding the link between IT and Bananas. B-a-n-a-n-a-s, Bananas.
Gwen Stefani isn't cutting it, so HP goes back to trying innovation
HP Labs Director Prith Banerjee told the WSJ yesterday his division will cut the number of projects it is pursuing from about 150 to as few as 20. The 600 researchers will work on technologies for managing increased information flow, Internet-based computing, moving information between devices, environmental sustainability and better understanding the link between IT and Bananas. B-a-n-a-n-a-s, Bananas.
The corporate board room: as pointless as you thought
Kleiner Perkins cofounder Tom Perkins describes his time on Hewlett-Packard's board as "an example of how a board of directors can really help management." But with that exception, he notes, corporate boards serve little purpose.
Kleiner Perkins cofounder Tom Perkins describes his time on Hewlett-Packard's board as "an example of how a board of directors can really help management." But with that exception, he notes, corporate boards serve little purpose.
100-word version
Tom Perkins on how Tom Perkins turned around HP
BusinessWeek's Spencer Ante has another interview outtake with former Hewlett-Packard board member and Kleiner Perkins cofounder Tom Perkins. In it, Perkins explains how he helped turn around HP. Here's the 100-word version of the harrowing tale of board committees, patent policies and microprocessors oh my! More »
dell
New top marketer Mark Jarvis tests spin versus reality
Mark Jarvis, the first chief marketing officer of computer maker Dell, perfected his art at Oracle: Deny, deny, deny, and when denials fail, spin, spin, spin. He boldly slashes at the branding and advertising strategies of Dell's past while outlining, with Oracular swagger, his new strategy for Dell. He says, of his own job, "It's not rocket science, funnily enough" — in a Wall Street Journal interview (subscription required). Unfortunately for Jarvis, the Journal ran a companion piece that paints a different picture: Jarvis's marketing rhetoric doesn't conform to the reality of Dell's production woes. More »
acquisitions
Marc Andreessen's Opsware goes to HP
Opsware, the boring but modestly successful software company founded by Marc Andreessen, has been sold to Hewlett-Packard, the boring but modestly successful hardware company founded by Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett, for $1.6 billion. It's a predictable deal — two years ago, I said HP would buy Opsware — but by waiting, Opsware commanded a nice price. The company, after all, only recently crowed about its market cap crossing $1 billion for the first time. Opsware's sale to HP leaves Andreessen free to focus on Ning, his startup which makes software to build social networks. It also put $138 million in his pocket.
"Good news is we're a $100 billion company. Bad news is we're a $100 billion company." - HP CEO Mark Hurd at Fortune's iMeme
