惠普2013年度筆電代工訂單分配已底定，廣達是最大贏家、其次是英業達，兩家公司約包辦惠普近八成筆電出貨；據業內人士透露，惠普筆電代工合作伙伴還有和碩、鴻海、緯創等，只是數量多寡不同。
外電報導，惠普去年12月27日向美國證券交易委員會（SEC）提交的10-K文件中，表示還在繼續評估出售已不再有助於實現目標的資產和業務的部門，在此之前，惠普前一年向該委員會提交的10-K文件中，並未提及此事。
惠普發言人麥可薩克爾（Michael Thacker）拒絕就這份文件以外的問題置評。惠普在文件中稱，該公司「有可能出售1項業務，其價格和條款不如我們原本的預想」，且「出售業務對我們營收成長的影響可能大於預期」。
市場認為，去年11月惠普針對收購軟體公司Autonomy交易，財報認列高達88億美元的減記，促使華爾街再次呼籲惠普應出售PC和印表機等特定業務，以實現股東價值。
惠普在這次監管文件的「風險要素」中，討論出售事業部議題。惠普表示，當公司決定出售資產或業務時，公司可能會在尋找買家等方面遇到難題，導致惠普實現戰略性目標的時間被迫延遲。
惠普收購Autonomy的失敗教訓
報道 2012年11月24日
當惠普(Hewlett-Packard)花費大約100億美元（約合620億元人民
幣）買下軟件公司Autonomy時，惠普以為自己是在為未來投資——在成為熱點趨勢的大數據領域投資。但這筆交易，結果卻是一場災難。惠普對這筆收購的
估值減記了50億美元，這還不是唯一的原因。
對惠普及其他老牌科技巨頭來說，這場不幸的交易是個教訓。他們投入數十億資金，收購以為可以帶來變革的技術，試圖在未來的競爭中佔領一席之地。
在那個未來，與雲計算數據中心相連接的智能手機、平板電腦是工作和娛樂的核心工具。公司會通過雲服務租用軟件，而不是簽署費用高昂的維修合同來購買軟件。
公司可以通過不斷分析大量數據來發現新規律，預測消費者行為，並依此進行產品設計。例如，Autonomy開發的軟件可以分析營銷模式，並為公司提供建議，比如應該增加哪一部分的營銷資源。
這些技術對更老一些的商業模式構成威脅，比如惠普傳統的個人電腦和數據儲存產品。甲骨文(Oracle)、微軟(Microsoft)及思科(Cisco)等其他公司也面臨壓力。他們也在努力為未來投資，而且他們有資金這麼做。
7月，微軟決定斥資12億美元購買Yammer公司，這家公司為辦公室提供類似Facebook的社交網絡產品。近期，甲骨文花費超過34億美元購 買兩家為人力資源和銷售管理部門提供軟件的小型雲計算公司。上周日，計算機網絡巨頭思科同意以12億美元現金收購Meraki，該公司為星巴克 (Starbucks)和其他公司提供無線網絡管理服務。
這些公司還有更多此類交易，IBM、SAP和其他公司也是如此。
變化的速度非常快，就在前幾年還被視為業界新銳的谷歌在2011年就出資125億美元購買摩托羅拉移動公司(Motorola Mobility)，加強其安卓(Android)智能手機業務，以此與蘋果公司(Apple)相競爭。今年早些時候，Facebook花費7.5億美元 收購了Instagram ，以免錯過社交網絡下一輪變革。
但耶魯大學(Yale University)管理學教授傑佛里·松內費爾德(Jeffrey Sonnenfeld)表示，要定義未來的下一個主流可能會很難。他說，像收購Autonomy這樣的交易多半“可能會有40%的成功率，60%的失敗概率”。
他補充說，“雖然勝算不大，但仍然值得嘗試。”
他表示，真正的危險在於，公司稱這些收購是“自然、必然的勝利”。他說，此類收購應該被視為“一種投資，就像研發方面的投資”。
當前的併購速度遠不能與20世紀90年代末互聯網泡沫時期相提並論。當時，思科花96萬美元買下了三家互聯網公司，這些公司的前任官員都稱，公司幾 乎沒有盈利。2002年，因為兼并而陷入困境的美國在線時代華納(AOL Time Warner)為了公司的利益而減記540億美元。幾家通訊設備製造公司和服務提供商也減記了數十億美元。
但是也有些著名的成功案例。
數據儲存設備製造公司EMC於2003年花費6.25億美元收購了開發重要雲計算技術的VMWare公司。自從將公司的一部分上市之後，今天EMC 的市值達到了300億美元左右。VMWare自己近期也開始了一場賭博，花費12.6億美元買下了沒有任何收益的下一代網絡公司Nicira。
2011年，微軟曾花費85億美元買下Skype，它還表示將把Yammer與成功的微軟合作軟件SharePoint相融合，並將在零成本的情況 下，把Yammer應用於微軟辦公室交流及生產效率軟件的高級版。然而，它並沒有表示Yammer本身是否可以盈利以及將如何盈利。
弗雷斯特研究公司(Forrester Research)研究數據分析軟件的萊斯莉·歐文斯(Leslie Owens)說，Autonomy真正的問題在於它的核心技術，而不在於它存在問題的銷售。
她說，“惠普認為它是一個全新的平台，但Autonomy的客戶卻表示，它並不如谷歌的企業級搜索產品。”
成立於16年前的Autonomy，“建立在使用強大計算程序的基礎之上，”她說，但是該公司的軟件無法適應“新的搜索信號，比如你的朋友們都在做什麼，像你這樣的人都在做什麼，你還可能會瀏覽哪些數據等”。隨着時間的推移，這些新方法吸引了大量客戶。
上個月在展示Autonomy產品的時候，惠普似乎已經處理了其中的一些問題，但其他問題仍然存在。一個用於弄清網絡廣告費應該花在哪兒的應用程序一開始就沒起作用，之後得出的結果，似乎也與其他幾個搜索產品相差無幾。
“我們仍然百分之百支持Autonomy和它在行業內的領先技術，”惠普在一項聲明中表示。“公司的產品非常先進，為很多客戶提供了獨特的解決方案。”
惠普的首席執行官梅格‧惠特曼(Meg Whitman)在周二的採訪中表示，公司還對它的安全軟件抱有很大希望，這些軟件中的大部分都是從其他併購案中獲得的。
惠普指責Autonomy去年被收購之前，在大部分的銷售業績上進行了不正當的審計。考慮到收購價格，其非現金減記達到了50億美元。
惠特曼對Autonomy的態度有些冷淡。
“非常令人失望，”她在提到減記時說，“我們已經把技術整合在了好幾個地方；我們還將把它應用於更多地方。”
對惠普及其他老牌科技巨頭來說，這場不幸的交易是個教訓。他們投入數十億資金，收購以為可以帶來變革的技術，試圖在未來的競爭中佔領一席之地。
公司可以通過不斷分析大量數據來發現新規律，預測消費者行為，並依此進行產品設計。例如，Autonomy開發的軟件可以分析營銷模式，並為公司提供建議，比如應該增加哪一部分的營銷資源。
這些技術對更老一些的商業模式構成威脅，比如惠普傳統的個人電腦和數據儲存產品。甲骨文(Oracle)、微軟(Microsoft)及思科(Cisco)等其他公司也面臨壓力。他們也在努力為未來投資，而且他們有資金這麼做。
7月，微軟決定斥資12億美元購買Yammer公司，這家公司為辦公室提供類似Facebook的社交網絡產品。近期，甲骨文花費超過34億美元購 買兩家為人力資源和銷售管理部門提供軟件的小型雲計算公司。上周日，計算機網絡巨頭思科同意以12億美元現金收購Meraki，該公司為星巴克 (Starbucks)和其他公司提供無線網絡管理服務。
這些公司還有更多此類交易，IBM、SAP和其他公司也是如此。
變化的速度非常快，就在前幾年還被視為業界新銳的谷歌在2011年就出資125億美元購買摩托羅拉移動公司(Motorola Mobility)，加強其安卓(Android)智能手機業務，以此與蘋果公司(Apple)相競爭。今年早些時候，Facebook花費7.5億美元 收購了Instagram ，以免錯過社交網絡下一輪變革。
但耶魯大學(Yale University)管理學教授傑佛里·松內費爾德(Jeffrey Sonnenfeld)表示，要定義未來的下一個主流可能會很難。他說，像收購Autonomy這樣的交易多半“可能會有40%的成功率，60%的失敗概率”。
他補充說，“雖然勝算不大，但仍然值得嘗試。”
他表示，真正的危險在於，公司稱這些收購是“自然、必然的勝利”。他說，此類收購應該被視為“一種投資，就像研發方面的投資”。
當前的併購速度遠不能與20世紀90年代末互聯網泡沫時期相提並論。當時，思科花96萬美元買下了三家互聯網公司，這些公司的前任官員都稱，公司幾 乎沒有盈利。2002年，因為兼并而陷入困境的美國在線時代華納(AOL Time Warner)為了公司的利益而減記540億美元。幾家通訊設備製造公司和服務提供商也減記了數十億美元。
但是也有些著名的成功案例。
數據儲存設備製造公司EMC於2003年花費6.25億美元收購了開發重要雲計算技術的VMWare公司。自從將公司的一部分上市之後，今天EMC 的市值達到了300億美元左右。VMWare自己近期也開始了一場賭博，花費12.6億美元買下了沒有任何收益的下一代網絡公司Nicira。
2011年，微軟曾花費85億美元買下Skype，它還表示將把Yammer與成功的微軟合作軟件SharePoint相融合，並將在零成本的情況 下，把Yammer應用於微軟辦公室交流及生產效率軟件的高級版。然而，它並沒有表示Yammer本身是否可以盈利以及將如何盈利。
弗雷斯特研究公司(Forrester Research)研究數據分析軟件的萊斯莉·歐文斯(Leslie Owens)說，Autonomy真正的問題在於它的核心技術，而不在於它存在問題的銷售。
她說，“惠普認為它是一個全新的平台，但Autonomy的客戶卻表示，它並不如谷歌的企業級搜索產品。”
成立於16年前的Autonomy，“建立在使用強大計算程序的基礎之上，”她說，但是該公司的軟件無法適應“新的搜索信號，比如你的朋友們都在做什麼，像你這樣的人都在做什麼，你還可能會瀏覽哪些數據等”。隨着時間的推移，這些新方法吸引了大量客戶。
上個月在展示Autonomy產品的時候，惠普似乎已經處理了其中的一些問題，但其他問題仍然存在。一個用於弄清網絡廣告費應該花在哪兒的應用程序一開始就沒起作用，之後得出的結果，似乎也與其他幾個搜索產品相差無幾。
“我們仍然百分之百支持Autonomy和它在行業內的領先技術，”惠普在一項聲明中表示。“公司的產品非常先進，為很多客戶提供了獨特的解決方案。”
惠普的首席執行官梅格‧惠特曼(Meg Whitman)在周二的採訪中表示，公司還對它的安全軟件抱有很大希望，這些軟件中的大部分都是從其他併購案中獲得的。
惠普指責Autonomy去年被收購之前，在大部分的銷售業績上進行了不正當的審計。考慮到收購價格，其非現金減記達到了50億美元。
惠特曼對Autonomy的態度有些冷淡。
“非常令人失望，”她在提到減記時說，“我們已經把技術整合在了好幾個地方；我們還將把它應用於更多地方。”
http://www.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=5044995&page=3
根據《金融時報》的計算，這價格是當時Autonomy營收的11倍、總資產的 3倍。因為這件購併案，導致惠普虧損88億美元（約台幣2,640億）。
但令人不解的是，個人電腦大廠惠普怎麼會被騙？
這 項併購案是由前任執行長李艾科（Léo Apotheker）決定，並在惠特曼上任之後完成。然而，一開始這樁併購案便遭到排山倒海而來的質疑。根據《紐約時報》報導，當時華爾街分析師紛紛表 示，惠普過度高估了Autonomy的價值，但曾是軟體大廠思愛普（SAP）執行長的李艾科卻堅持惠普必須布局軟體市場，而Autonomy擅長的大量資 料分析，絕對是未來的趨勢。而且在宣布收購Autonomy的同時，李艾科公開表示考慮出售惠普的個人電腦部門，震驚科技業。
但幾星期之 後，李艾科被迫辭職下台，9月惠特曼接任執行長職務。根據惠普內部消息指出，惠特曼曾向董事會成員抱怨Autonomy的收購價格過高。結果沒過幾個月， 大約在2011年底，Autonomy創辦人麥可．林區（Mike Lynch）在惠普的好友，也就是當時的惠普科技長尚恩．羅賓森（Shane Robison）也離開了惠普。
然而，今年5月，惠普開始進行內部調查，才驚覺事態嚴重。但令人不解的是，個人電腦大廠惠普怎麼會被騙？
這 項併購案是由前任執行長李艾科（Léo Apotheker）決定，並在惠特曼上任之後完成。然而，一開始這樁併購案便遭到排山倒海而來的質疑。根據《紐約時報》報導，當時華爾街分析師紛紛表 示，惠普過度高估了Autonomy的價值，但曾是軟體大廠思愛普（SAP）執行長的李艾科卻堅持惠普必須布局軟體市場，而Autonomy擅長的大量資 料分析，絕對是未來的趨勢。而且在宣布收購Autonomy的同時，李艾科公開表示考慮出售惠普的個人電腦部門，震驚科技業。
但幾星期之 後，李艾科被迫辭職下台，9月惠特曼接任執行長職務。根據惠普內部消息指出，惠特曼曾向董事會成員抱怨Autonomy的收購價格過高。結果沒過幾個月， 大約在2011年底，Autonomy創辦人麥可．林區（Mike Lynch）在惠普的好友，也就是當時的惠普科技長尚恩．羅賓森（Shane Robison）也離開了惠普。
惠特曼曾試圖藉由惠普龐大的客戶群，打開Autonomy的全球市場，當時她還信誓旦旦地對外宣稱，Autonomy的大量資料分析技術，足以與IBM的資料分析以及亞馬遜的雲端運算服務相抗衡。
然而，在漂亮說辭的背後，卻是暗潮洶湧。
自Autonomy被惠普收購之後，麥可．林區便盡一切可能遠離惠普的直接掌控，大部分的時間他都留在倫敦辦公室，Autonomy也另外在舊金山設立辦公室，而非在惠普位於帕洛奧圖的總部大樓上班。
麥可．林區認為惠普不該干涉Autonomy的日常運作，惠特曼也認為應該讓Autonomy獨立運作，才能保持創業精神。
但彼此井水不犯河水的運作模式，終究引爆危機。
Autonomy 在歷經創業前幾年的成長高峰期之後，開始面臨瓶頸，佛瑞斯特研究公司（Forrester Research）指出，不良的客戶關係是Autonomy最大隱憂，此外不投資研發，新產品推出時程不定，缺乏明確的策略規劃，這些都成了 Autonomy發展的致命傷，而惠普採取放任的管理態度，讓問題更加惡化。
Autonomy加入惠普之後，銷售一直不見起色，一開始惠特曼認為這或許是因為麥可．林區缺乏管理大型公司的經驗，但事後她又認為是因為Autonomy必須適應惠普的遊戲規則。
然而，在漂亮說辭的背後，卻是暗潮洶湧。
自Autonomy被惠普收購之後，麥可．林區便盡一切可能遠離惠普的直接掌控，大部分的時間他都留在倫敦辦公室，Autonomy也另外在舊金山設立辦公室，而非在惠普位於帕洛奧圖的總部大樓上班。
麥可．林區認為惠普不該干涉Autonomy的日常運作，惠特曼也認為應該讓Autonomy獨立運作，才能保持創業精神。
但彼此井水不犯河水的運作模式，終究引爆危機。
Autonomy 在歷經創業前幾年的成長高峰期之後，開始面臨瓶頸，佛瑞斯特研究公司（Forrester Research）指出，不良的客戶關係是Autonomy最大隱憂，此外不投資研發，新產品推出時程不定，缺乏明確的策略規劃，這些都成了 Autonomy發展的致命傷，而惠普採取放任的管理態度，讓問題更加惡化。
Autonomy加入惠普之後，銷售一直不見起色，一開始惠特曼認為這或許是因為麥可．林區缺乏管理大型公司的經驗，但事後她又認為是因為Autonomy必須適應惠普的遊戲規則。
根據調查發現，Autonomy將部分低階硬體產品的銷售歸入軟體銷售，如此一來便可以隱匿成本，將營業虧損列為行銷預算，誇大獲利。此外，Autonomy在實際入帳之前便將授權收入列入財務報表中。
除了疑似詐欺的財務手法之外，惠普也發現，Autonomy透過中間商代理銷售軟體，但這些中間商往往虛報銷售數字給Autonomy，實際上這些銷售並未真正發生。
這樁令人震驚的收購案，恐怕是惠普歷史上最嚴重的一次經營危機。
然而，更糟的是，惠普自身的核心業務，也是問題重重。
就以曾是金雞母的印表機業務為例，根據英國《衛報》報導，惠普硬體產品銷售的營業額總計下滑20％，商用硬體部門的營業額下滑15％，消費者硬體部門的營業額更是下滑22％。
此外，惠普的個人電腦部門，儘管創造了87億美元的營業額，卻賺不到多少錢。根據研究機構IDC的估算，今年第三季惠普的個人電腦出貨量為1,394萬台，總獲利為3.09億美元，若以平均每台電腦的售價為620美元計算，每台電腦只能賺22美元。
面對惠普的多重危機，執行長惠特曼可要大傷腦筋，要能徹底扭轉惠普的營運，恐怕得花上兩三年的時間。（吳凱琳編譯）
H-P Blames $8.8 Billion Charge on Bad Deal
By BEN WORTHEN
Hewlett-Packard Co. HPQ -11.88% surprised investors Tuesday when it claimed it had been duped into overpaying for one of its largest acquisitions, a U.K. software maker, that will result in an $8.8 billion charge.
Hewlett-Packard leveled serious accusations
against a software company it bought last year, saying it would take a
$8.8 billion write-down after it claimed Autonomy's leadership
misrepresented its performance. Scott Austin reports on Markets Hub.
Photo: Reuters.
H-P, already trading near a 10-year low, plunged another 12% on Tuesday.
The write-down—H-P's second straight quarterly multibillion-dollar charge—resulted in a nearly $7 billion loss for the Palo Alto, Calif., company.
H-P said Autonomy—before it was acquired—mischaracterized some sales of low-margin hardware as software and recognized some deals with partners as revenue even when a customer never bought the product.
H-P Chief Executive Meg Whitman said H-P has alerted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.K. Serious Fraud Office and requested that they open an investigation. The company said it's also seeking recourse through private litigation, though Ms. Whitman stressed any such outcome could take years.
Of the $8.8 billion charge related to the write-down, more than $5 billion is related to the accounting issues.
The SEC is launching an investigation into the fraud allegations, according to a person familiar with the matter. An SEC spokesperson couldn't immediately be reached.
Hewlett-Packard has claimed that the
leadership at Autonomy, the software firm it acquired last year,
misrepresented its performance as the deal was being negotiated. WSJ's
Ben Rooney profiles the company and its founder, Mike Lynch. Photo:
Bloomberg
Related Coverage
- Deloitte in an Unwanted Spotlight
- Ex CEO Leo Apotheker: Due Diligence of Autonomy Was Meticulous
- Meg Whitman: Those Responsible for Autonomy Deal Are Gone
- Heard on the Street: Fresh Blow for London
- Corporate Intelligence: The Warning Signs at Autonomy
- Deal Journal: The Advisers on the Deal
- Digits: Players Behind the Buy
- Tech Europe: Mike Lynch Profile
- Deal Journal: Hewlett-Packard Takes Second $8 Billion Deal Charge This Year
- Deal Journal: Remember Oracle's Accusations Too
- Corporate Intelligence: Write Down Avoidable, With Autonomy Software
- Transcript of H-P's Earnings Call
Previously
- Tech Europe: H-P and Autonomy: A Clash of Cultures (5/24/2012)
- Buyers Beware: The Goodwill Games (8/14/12)
- Tech Europe: Autonomy's Lynch Says H-P Deal Marks IT Shift (8/30/11)
- Europe Mixed Over Deal (8/19/11)
A Silicon Valley icon, H-P became the world's largest technology maker by revenue from selling personal computers, printers and other products and services for businesses. But it's been hurt by a several factors, including CEO and executive turnover, slowing demand for some products and mounting debt.
A History of Hewlett-Packard
Even before H-P announced its acquisition of the software maker in August 2011, rumors swirled that Autonomy's growth was due partly to fuzzy accounting. A dossier questioning some of Autonomy's growth was widely circulated around the time that the acquisition by H-P was announced.
Mike Lynch, Autonomy's CEO at the time, denied any such irregularities in an interview then. Mr. Lynch left H-P in May.
In an interview Tuesday, Mr. Lynch said the allegations are "completely and utterly wrong and we reject them completely." He added that he wasn't made aware of the allegations until H-P's press release was issued Tuesday.
H-P's internal team was aware of the allegations at the time of Mr. Lynch's departure, people familiar with the matter have said. There was broad concern when H-P announced its intent to acquire Autonomy in August 2011 that it was overpaying—rival Oracle Corp. ORCL -0.17% even ran a publicity campaign stating that it had a chance to buy Autonomy but passed because it was too expensive.
At the time, one of the people familiar with the matter said H-P was looking for a way to unwind the deal before it closed but couldn't find any material accounting issues. On Tuesday, Ms. Whitman said the company relied on Deloitte's audit of Autonomy and had hired KPMG for an additional review.
Neither firm found any irregularities, she said. H-P's internal investigation was launched after a senior Autonomy executive came forward in May, following Mr. Lynch's resignation from H-P.
Spokespeople for Deloitte UK and KPMG declined further comment beyond noting the allegations, citing client confidentiality.
Ms. Whitman, who was on H-P's board when the Autonomy deal was announced, blamed the mistake on her predecessor, Leo Apotheker, and the company's former strategy chief, Shane Robison.
"The two people who should have been held responsible are gone," she said, noting that the mergers and acquisition function now report to H-P's finance chief.
In a statement, Mr. Apotheker said he was "both stunned and disappointed" to learn of H-P's allegations. He said "the due diligence process was meticulous and thorough, and included two of the world's largest and most respected auditing firms working on behalf of HP." He added that he will assist H-P and the authorities "to get to the bottom of this."
Mr. Robison didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
H-P general counsel John Schultz said in an interview that he was aware that there were rumors about accounting issues at Autonomy before the deal closed, but that H-P was shown "significant documentation from former Autonomy executives refuting the allegations." In hindsight, "It's fair to say those refutations were questionable," he said.
H-P's decision to buy Autonomy in August last year was part of Mr. Apotheker's dramatic plan to revamp H-P by splitting off or selling its personal-computer business. Mr. Apotheker was ousted a few weeks after the announcement, and his successor, current CEO Ms. Whitman, eventually chose to keep the PC division.
When H-P bought it, Autonomy was Britain's biggest software company, and second-largest in Europe after Germany's SAP SAP.XE +0.89% AG. It has customers that include intelligence agencies, big corporations, banks and law firms.
Autonomy's software searches through unstructured information—such as emails, instant messages, recordings of phone calls, still and video images—looking for patterns of lucrative or nefarious activity. Intelligence agencies use it in analyzing intercepted communications; the dealings of Jérôme Kerviel, rogue trader at Société Générale SA, GLE.FR +1.82% were also tracked using Autonomy's technology.
Even without the Autonomy charge, H-P's business suffered.
Overall for the fiscal fourth quarter ended Oct. 31, H-P said it swung to a $6.9 billion loss while revenue fell 7% from a year earlier. It was the technology giant's fifth straight quarter of big declines, a trend Ms. Whitman said is likely to continue.
H-P last month said it expected revenue in the current fiscal year to fall in each of its biggest businesses. It said it expected per-share profits for the year of $2.10 to 2.30, or between $3.40 and $3.60 excluding one-time charges. The company reiterated that guidance Tuesday, while projecting current-quarter earnings between 34 cents and 37 cents per share, or between 68 cents and 71 cents excluding one-time charges.
The forecast assumes that the second half of the new fiscal year will be better than the first, which contributed to Tuesday's sell off. "I think that's pretty optimistic," said Rob Cihra, an analyst at Evercore Partners EVR -1.05% . "Management's credibility isn't that high so when they guide for a recovery in the second half, investors take that with a big bag of salt."
He said investors expected an Autonomy write-down, just not for the cited reasons. "Things just keep getting worse, not better," he said.
H-P's revenue for the quarter was $30 billion compared with $32.1 billion a year earlier.
Revenue in its PC business fell 14% from a year ago to $8.7 billion. Sales to consumers were hit particularly hard during the quarter, decreasing 16%, though sales to businesses also fell 13%.
The overall market for PCs has slipped lately, as people instead buy tablets and smartphones. Research company IDC said that overall PC shipments declined more than 8% in the third quarter of 2012, the largest such shortfall in more than a decade. H-P's shipments declined 16%, IDC said.
Sales in H-P's printer group dropped 5% to $6.1 billion, while revenue from products like servers and networking gear used by businesses declined 9% to $5.1 billion. In H-P's big services business, which the company has identified as a problem area, sales fell 6% to $8.7 billion.
—Ian Sherr, Drew Fitzgerald, Paul Sonne, Rolfe Winkler and Ben Rooney contributed to this article.
惠普公司將裁員29,000人
惠普公司預計﹐公司裁員人數將較此前披露的數字高出2,惠普股價大跌 CEO稱公司復甦之路崎嶇
惠普公司股價週四大跌7.9%﹐
Tata's Exuberance Fizzles
Tata Motors promises something for everyone. But overpromising can lead to under-delivering.
英国员工批评惠普文化“令人窒息” 英
惠普收购的英国公司Autonomy有四分之一的员工辞职，
惠普砍３萬名員工！預估省１２億美元
這篇一個多月前的文章還有意義
作者雖然是紐約時報的產品分析員畢竟是圈內人
The Year of C.E.O. Failures Explained
In some ways, the most interesting stories in tech for 2011 weren’t the products. They were the companies. Or, more specifically, their chief executives.
The Times’s technology columnist, David Pogue, keeps you on top of the industry in his free, weekly e-mail newsletter.
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Or, to be more specific still, the C.E.O.’s’ idiotic blunders.
There was Hewlett-Packard’s chief, Léo Apotheker, whose software company background apparently left him baffled by H.P.’s hardware business. He killed off H.P.’s promising, brand-new TouchPad tablet only seven weeks after its release, along with Palm Pre phones and a huge range of products based on the company’s WebOS operating system—and proposed jettisoning the computer business that had made it famous.
After a huge public outcry, he was fired, and the new chief executive (Meg Whitman) reversed the changes or suspended them.
There was Netflix’s C.E.O., Reed Hastings, who decided to raise the price of Netflix’s most popular plan 60 percent — and then split the company in two. One would just mail DVDs, while the other would offer streaming movies from the Internet. Each company would have its own Web site, movie queues, billing and name (Netflix and Quickster, or Qwikster, or Qwiquster, or something). It would require twice as much administrative effort by its customers, and it made no sense whatsoever.
After a huge public outcry (and after losing a million customers), he backed off from the company-split idea and left well enough alone.
There was Cisco’s chief executive, John Chambers, who decided to shut down the Flip camcorder business he had bought only two years earlier for $590 million. Killing off the Flip involved taking the world’s most popular camcorder off the market and laying off 550 people.
After a huge public outcry, well, nothing happened. He’s still the C.E.O., and the Flip is gone.
These C.E.O.’s may have had their own internal business reasons for these unpopular decisions. But they were internal, self-interested reasons. Reasons intended to please stockholders, perhaps.
Even so, all three committed several cardinal sins: Putting customers last. Rewarding loyalty with rudeness. Failing to make their cases to the public.
All of them wound up looking terrible. All of them increased the sense of disconnection between big companies and the millions who buy their products.
I’ve never worked a 9-to-5 job, so I may feel the biggest sense of disconnection of all. Maybe life inside a company is so different from real life that what seem like crazy decisions to me seem perfectly justified to the number crunchers.
But it doesn’t seem like you’d need a business degree to appreciate that these would be bad decisions. Whenever I see a company shooting itself in the foot like that, I always wonder: how could anyone be so stupid? When do people become so stupid?
Last spring, I taught a class at the Columbia Business School called “What Makes a Hit a Hit—and a Flop a Flop.” I focused on consumer-tech success stories and disasters.
I distinctly remember the day I focused on products that were rushed to market when they were full of bugs — and the company knew it (can you say “BlackBerry Storm?”). I sagely told my class full of twentysomethings that I was proud to talk to them now, when they were young and impressionable — that I hoped I could instill some sense of Doing What’s Right before they became corrupted by the corporate world.
But it was too late.
To my astonishment, hands shot up all over the room. These budding chief executives wound up telling me, politely, that I was wrong. That there’s a solid business case for shipping half-finished software. “You get the revenue flowing,” one young lady told me. “You don’t want to let your investors down, right? You can always fix the software later.”
You can always fix the software later. Wow.
That’s right. Use your customers as beta testers. Don’t worry about burning them. Don’t worry about souring them on your company name forever. There will always be more customers where those came from, right?
That “ignore the customer” approach hasn’t worked out so well for Hewlett-Packard, Netflix and Cisco. All three suffered enormous public black eyes. All three looked like they had no idea what they were doing.
Maybe all of those M.B.A.’s pouring into the workplace know something we don’t. Maybe there’s actually a shrewd master plan that the common folk can’t even fathom.
But maybe, too, there’s a solid business case to be made for factoring public reaction and the customer’s interest into big business decisions. And maybe, just maybe, that idea will become other C.E.O.s’ 2012 New Year’s resolution.
The Times’s technology columnist, David Pogue, keeps you on top of the industry in his free, weekly e-mail newsletter.
Sign up | See Sample
There was Hewlett-Packard’s chief, Léo Apotheker, whose software company background apparently left him baffled by H.P.’s hardware business. He killed off H.P.’s promising, brand-new TouchPad tablet only seven weeks after its release, along with Palm Pre phones and a huge range of products based on the company’s WebOS operating system—and proposed jettisoning the computer business that had made it famous.
After a huge public outcry, he was fired, and the new chief executive (Meg Whitman) reversed the changes or suspended them.
There was Netflix’s C.E.O., Reed Hastings, who decided to raise the price of Netflix’s most popular plan 60 percent — and then split the company in two. One would just mail DVDs, while the other would offer streaming movies from the Internet. Each company would have its own Web site, movie queues, billing and name (Netflix and Quickster, or Qwikster, or Qwiquster, or something). It would require twice as much administrative effort by its customers, and it made no sense whatsoever.
After a huge public outcry (and after losing a million customers), he backed off from the company-split idea and left well enough alone.
There was Cisco’s chief executive, John Chambers, who decided to shut down the Flip camcorder business he had bought only two years earlier for $590 million. Killing off the Flip involved taking the world’s most popular camcorder off the market and laying off 550 people.
After a huge public outcry, well, nothing happened. He’s still the C.E.O., and the Flip is gone.
These C.E.O.’s may have had their own internal business reasons for these unpopular decisions. But they were internal, self-interested reasons. Reasons intended to please stockholders, perhaps.
Even so, all three committed several cardinal sins: Putting customers last. Rewarding loyalty with rudeness. Failing to make their cases to the public.
All of them wound up looking terrible. All of them increased the sense of disconnection between big companies and the millions who buy their products.
I’ve never worked a 9-to-5 job, so I may feel the biggest sense of disconnection of all. Maybe life inside a company is so different from real life that what seem like crazy decisions to me seem perfectly justified to the number crunchers.
But it doesn’t seem like you’d need a business degree to appreciate that these would be bad decisions. Whenever I see a company shooting itself in the foot like that, I always wonder: how could anyone be so stupid? When do people become so stupid?
Last spring, I taught a class at the Columbia Business School called “What Makes a Hit a Hit—and a Flop a Flop.” I focused on consumer-tech success stories and disasters.
I distinctly remember the day I focused on products that were rushed to market when they were full of bugs — and the company knew it (can you say “BlackBerry Storm?”). I sagely told my class full of twentysomethings that I was proud to talk to them now, when they were young and impressionable — that I hoped I could instill some sense of Doing What’s Right before they became corrupted by the corporate world.
But it was too late.
To my astonishment, hands shot up all over the room. These budding chief executives wound up telling me, politely, that I was wrong. That there’s a solid business case for shipping half-finished software. “You get the revenue flowing,” one young lady told me. “You don’t want to let your investors down, right? You can always fix the software later.”
You can always fix the software later. Wow.
That’s right. Use your customers as beta testers. Don’t worry about burning them. Don’t worry about souring them on your company name forever. There will always be more customers where those came from, right?
That “ignore the customer” approach hasn’t worked out so well for Hewlett-Packard, Netflix and Cisco. All three suffered enormous public black eyes. All three looked like they had no idea what they were doing.
Maybe all of those M.B.A.’s pouring into the workplace know something we don’t. Maybe there’s actually a shrewd master plan that the common folk can’t even fathom.
But maybe, too, there’s a solid business case to be made for factoring public reaction and the customer’s interest into big business decisions. And maybe, just maybe, that idea will become other C.E.O.s’ 2012 New Year’s resolution.
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