HP to axe 30,000 jobs to cut costs

[Paul Sture]

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/09411f3c-
a054-11e1-88e6-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1vCHQVMBD

or tinyurl:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/7npqe4j

Ouch!

--
Paul Sture

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

"FT.com articles are only available to registered
users and subscribers"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/17/hp_whitman_job_cuts_rumor/

[Paul Sture]

Thanks Jan-Erik.

(You can register for free with FT.com but then you are restricted to the
number of articles you can read per month.)



--
Paul Sture

[JF Mezei]

Paul Sture wrote:
> http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/09411f3c-
> a054-11e1-88e6-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1vCHQVMBD


This is behind a paywall.

news.google.com can help you find many articles that are open to read
such as retuers article:

http://ca.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idCABRE84G16320120517

This above quotes 25,000 jobs (8 to 10% of workforce estimated at 300,000)

Another article says the workdforce is at 350,000 and says the cuts are
30k jobs.

When HP makes the official announcement, we may get an inkling of where
Whitman intends to take HP. Or it may be a vague announcement without
any mention of targetted cuts and it will take a ful year before we get
to know where cuts are happening.

Consider the cust in VMS engineering. A decision would have had to have
been made at a high level quiet a bit fo time before employees were told
and forced to sign NDA and there were a number of months before word got
out of what was happening.

[John Wallace]

On May 18, 2:55 pm, Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik.soderh...@telia.com>
wrote:

Go to Google, search for something in the article, click on the link
and read *that article* only, no registration necessary. Bug ?
Feature? Who cares, enjoy it while it lasts.

[JF Mezei]

Forbes has an interesting title:

HP on Crash Course, More Layoffs
http://www.forbes.com/sites/susankalla/2012/05/18/crash-course-hp-tries-to-stop-dive-with-huge-layoff/


The text of the URL is also interesting: "stop dive with huge layoffs"
(subtle way for editorial/opinion to be added to the article)

The clear cutting done by Hurd is coming back to haunt HP and at least
he now gets the blame for this, especially cutting R&D.

I think HP made a BIG mistake abandonning so quickly the mobile market.
bandonning their proprietary OS from Palm is understandable, but they
could have made some Android based devices.

Whitman was not handed an easy job. Hopefully when the job cuts are
announced, there will be sufficient explanation to give a sense of where
HP is going and how quickly it will get there (especially with regards
to enterprise and most especially with BCS).

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 5/18/2012 9:44 AM, Paul Sture wrote:
> http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/09411f3c-
> a054-11e1-88e6-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1vCHQVMBD
>
> or tinyurl:
>
> http://preview.tinyurl.com/7npqe4j

Other sources say 25000.

But Meg seems ready to act now.

Arne

[Arne Vajhøj]

It works like this:
* the site want the Google hits so they allow Google in
* if people complain to Google that the link found via
Google does not allow access to users then Google will
blacklist the site
* so the site allows requests with Google as referrer

Arne

[JF Mezei]

Arne Vajh�j wrote:

> Other sources say 25000.
>
> But Meg seems ready to act now.

Anytime a CEO announced future job cuts with high and rounded numbers,
it is bad news. Bad news because the cuts are dictated by the top
irrespective of staffing levels that are really needed.

I much prefer a CEO who announces "during the last quarter, we have
looked at efficiencies gained by the merging of the PC and printer group
and have been able to eliminate just over 5000 jobs."


Cutting jobs for the sake of cutting jobs (aka: please wall street
casino analysts) generally does nothing to rebuild the company because
such cuts often affect the company's ability to keep quality/service and
R&D intact.

And a CEO imposing such job cuts on his/her company usually means he/she
doesn't trust the VPs and managers to identify redundant jobs that could
be cut. This should be a continuous process, not a "spring cleanup,
we'll cut 25k jobs" that happens once every year.


So I see this as a negative for Meg Whitman. I had, until now, hoped she
could be different and really put some life back into HP.

Ironic that people now realise that HP is in bad shape in part because
Hurd cat cut too much, and now, Whitman is starting the same thing.

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 5/19/2012 1:13 PM, JF Mezei wrote:

> Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> Other sources say 25000.
>>
>> But Meg seems ready to act now.
>
> Anytime a CEO announced future job cuts with high and rounded numbers,
> it is bad news. Bad news because the cuts are dictated by the top
> irrespective of staffing levels that are really needed.
>
> I much prefer a CEO who announces "during the last quarter, we have
> looked at efficiencies gained by the merging of the PC and printer group
> and have been able to eliminate just over 5000 jobs."
>
> Cutting jobs for the sake of cutting jobs (aka: please wall street
> casino analysts) generally does nothing to rebuild the company because
> such cuts often affect the company's ability to keep quality/service and
> R&D intact.
>
> And a CEO imposing such job cuts on his/her company usually means he/she
> doesn't trust the VPs and managers to identify redundant jobs that could
> be cut. This should be a continuous process, not a "spring cleanup,
> we'll cut 25k jobs" that happens once every year.

Where did you read that the number was decided by Meg and flowing down
and not an aggregate of numbers flowing up to Meg?

Arne

PS: And with dropping revenue I can not really see not reducing head
count as an option.

[JF Mezei]

Arne Vajh�j wrote:

> Where did you read that the number was decided by Meg and flowing down
> and not an aggregate of numbers flowing up to Meg?

Headcount reductions announced just ahead or part of financial
statements are done from the top down. The CFO tells the CEO that to
save X million in payroll, they need to cut 25,000 jobs.

The problem is that often, at that level, they don't really know what
the impact of those job cuts will be and as was the case with Digital,
it made things worse.

Whitman inherits an HP that was wounded by Hurd making too many cuts,
and now she does the same.

I have no problem with a CEO that states at a financial report:

"In the past quarter, we have identified 12,197 jobs that were no longer
necessary due to streamlining of processes and removing duplication of
work. "

I have a problem with making promises to cut a large number of jobs
because those cuts oten aren't the result of improving processes, they
are just managers told their budgets are reduced and to select X number
of employees to be fired.

[David Froble]

There are substantial problems with the announcement of large scale job cuts.

It says the company can no longer make money in the business it is in.

Will the job cuts come from the parts of the business which is no longer supporting those
jobs, or from the parts of the business still making money, thus making the situation even
worse.

I've seen situations where the question is, are you producing income for the company
today? Well, R&D does not produce income for the company today, but without R&D there may
not be any income in the future. (Not that wall street and management care about anything
beyond 3 months)

It seemed that when DEC was trying to downsize, the very people who were not needed were
the ones making the decisions, and not very many, as in none, saw their own job as not
required. What got cut was what should NOT have got cut.

When there are job cuts, all too often it's because the company is failing. Cutting
payroll may look good short term, but does nothing to address the reasons the company is
failing. I've got to wonder how much payroll could be saved if the top 100 compensated
people in the company, surely most or all in management, were cut. We all know how much
chance there is of that.

[Subcommandante XDelta]

From a Reuters/Associated Press report:

:

Major decisions

Meg Whitman became CEO of HP in September, replacing Leo Apotheker,
who was fired after less than a year on the job. In addition to these
job cuts, here are some major decisions under her leadership:

-October 27, 2011: After her predecessor flirts will selling or
spinning off the PC business, HP says it will keep it after all. The
company says keeping it is right for the company, its customers,
shareholders and business partners.

- December 9: HP says that instead of selling its webOS mobile
operating system or killing it off, it's making it available as
open-source software that anyone can use and modify freely. The
company is hoping more mobile apps will be developed under webOS by
offering it to the open-source community.

- March 21, 2012: HP says it will combine its PC and printers
businesses. The move will save an unspecified amount of money as the
company expects improved productivity and efficiency and streamlined
customer support and supply chain. HP had combined the divisions
before, but reversed that in 2005 when printers were still thriving.

:

Just tapping about in the dark looking for that singular photon of
hope in regards to VMS, but is the news about WebOS such a photon?

[Paul Sture]

And in other news, the head of Autonomy (which was acquired by HP last
October for USD 10.3 billion) is leaving.

http://www.cio.co.uk/news/3359709/mike-lynch-leaves-hp-autonomy/?
intcmp=ROSIA3

or

http://bit.ly/JFzGje

... start quote ---
Whitman cited the difficulties of growing an entrepreneurial company as
the reason for the decline.

“It is not the product. It’s not the market. It’s not the competition.
This is classic entrepreneurial company scaling challenges – it’s a whole
different ball game,” she said.

However, according to sources close to the situation, 20 percent of
Autonomy management team have left since the HP takeover.'

...


Commenting on Lynch’s departure, TechMarketView's Holway said: “This is
obviously bad news for Autonomy’s people in Cambridge. In some respects
it might be good news for Lynch and UK-based software development. We
fully suspect Lynch will use his vast fortune to produce an Autonomy#2 –
wherever that might lead. It would undoubtedly be Cambridge-based –
Lynch’s physical and emotional home.

“As for HP, we shed a tear for this once great company. The list of once
great companies acquired by HP over the last decade only to disappear
without trace adds yet another name.”

--- end quote ---

IOW, Autonomy have fared little different from other UK companies which
have been taken over by large US corporations over the years. No
surprises there.

My personal view of Lynch stems from a BBC TV documentary 2 or 3 years
ago which trued to address regional differences in the UK. It's one
thing to promote your own area (Canbridge in Lynch's case), but it's
quite something else to slag another area off with no sound
justification. The man came across as a bigot.

--
Paul Sture

[JF Mezei]

This past week, the speculation on job cuts was clarified by HP:

HP Launches Multi-year Restructuring to Fuel Innovation and Enable
Investment
http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-news/press-release.html?id=1247078#.T8BnCczVFRE

As part of the restructuring, HP expects approximately 27,000 employees
to exit the company, or 8.0% of its workforce as of Oct. 31, 2011, by
the end of fiscal year 2014.

HP will invest in research and development to drive innovation and
differentiation across its core printing and personal systems
businesses, as well as emerging areas. It will also invest in marketing,
sales productivity and tools that simplify the customer experience and
make it easier to do business with HP.

Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking will invest to accelerate its
research and development activities to extend its leading portfolio of
servers, storage and networking. Together these assets create a
Converged Infrastructure which is the foundation for top client
initiatives such as cloud, virtualization, big data analytics, legacy
modernization and social media.


And from the financiual quarter release:


Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking (ESSN) revenue declined 6%
year over year with an 11.2% operating margin. Networking revenue was
up 2%, Industry Standard Servers revenue was down 6%, Business
Critical Systems revenue was down 23%, and Storage revenue was up 1%
year over year.


Yep BCS down 23%



Not related to VMS, but interesting:

In May 2012, HP committed to a change in its PC branding strategy. As a
result, HP has commenced an asset impairment analysis to determine the
current value of the Compaq trade name acquired in 2002.

Net revenue Earnings before taxes: (millions)
PCs: 18,325 988
Services: 17,457 1,902
Printing: 12,390 1,569
ESSN: 10,229 1,147
etc

So the enterprise storage servers and networking still delivers more
profit than PCs although it gets only 55% of net revenues.

Breaking down ESSN net revenues:

Industry Standard Servers: 3186
Storage 990
Business Critical Systems: 421
Networking: 614

From the transcript document:
Within BCS, our mission critical x86 grew double digits, but BCS
performance continued to be impacted by Itanium revenue declines

In the webcast though, Whitman says "impacted by th Oracle/Itanium issue".




From the webcast of the financial analyst teleconference:
http://h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=71087&p=irol-EventDetails&EventId=4700759


"Business critical systems, not surprisingly, still facing challenges
from the Oracle Itanium issue, but more important is how we're moving
forward. Our Odyssey solution is an innovative mission-critical x86
platform that will offer customers a transition to open standards-based
architectures."



Interesting, newly acquired Autonomy has seen revenue decline following
acquisition from HP. (HP is kicking out the founder and replacing with
its own staff).


In the questions and asnwers:
##
Even in industry standard servers, which people say to me all the time,
isn't that a commodity business? Not if we can help it, it shouldn't be.
Look at our next-generation Gen 8 ProLiant servers.Look at Moonshot,look
at Odyssey.These are things that redefine that category,and that's the
thing that we want to invest in.
##

Moonshot is the very low energy consumption servers. Odyssey is the
Superdome class based on x86 (glorified blade servers).

[Neil Rieck]

On May 26, 1:56 am, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam...@vaxination.ca> wrote:
> This past week, the speculation on job cuts was clarified by HP:
>
> HP Launches Multi-year Restructuring to Fuel Innovation and Enable

> Investmenthttp://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-news/press-release.html?id=1247078#.T8BnC...

> From the webcast of the financial analyst teleconference:http://h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=71087&p=irol-EventDetails&E...

>
> "Business critical systems, not surprisingly, still facing challenges
> from the Oracle Itanium issue, but more important is how we're moving
> forward. Our Odyssey solution is an innovative mission-critical x86
> platform that will offer customers a transition to open standards-based
> architectures."
>
> Interesting, newly acquired Autonomy has seen revenue decline following
> acquisition from HP. (HP is kicking out the founder and replacing with
> its own staff).
>
> In the questions and asnwers:
> ##
> Even in industry standard servers, which people say to me all the time,
> isn't that a commodity business? Not if we can help it, it shouldn't be.
> Look at our next-generation Gen 8 ProLiant servers.Look at Moonshot,look
> at Odyssey.These are things that redefine that category,and that's the
> thing that we want to invest in.
> ##
>
> Moonshot is the very low energy consumption servers. Odyssey is the
> Superdome class based on x86 (glorified blade servers).

When it comes to comparing businesses, I know next to nothing. What is
worse, I often try to compare similar businesses which are in slightly
different markets (but know-nothing MBAs are guilty of the same
mistake so I will continue). Using google finance to get market caps,
and wikipedia to get employee numbers, here is what I came up with:

HPQ $44B 350k
Oracle $130B 111k
Microsoft $244B 92k
Apple $525B 60k
---------------------------
IBM $224B 433k

The 10,000 foot view (from the HPQ board room) of the first four
(cherry picked) items indicate that fewer employees translate into
larger market cap. Now we all know that HPQ took on its largest number
of employees when it acquired EDS. Unlike Apple, HP's primary business
is "human-based computer services" so getting rid of people will hurt
that business unless they can develop some wiz-bang technology to
provide "computer services" with fewer people. But the IBM numbers
are proof that lowering employee numbers (unless the employees being
purged were doing nothing) is a big mistake.

So is HP comparing itself to Oracle, Microsoft, and Apple, or are they
comparing themselves to IBM?

http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3AHPQ

NSR

[John Wallace]

On May 26, 6:56 am, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam...@vaxination.ca> wrote:
> This past week, the speculation on job cuts was clarified by HP:
>
> HP Launches Multi-year Restructuring to Fuel Innovation and Enable

> Investmenthttp://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-news/press-release.html?id=1247078#.T8BnC...

> From the webcast of the financial analyst teleconference:http://h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=71087&p=irol-EventDetails&E...

>
> "Business critical systems, not surprisingly, still facing challenges
> from the Oracle Itanium issue, but more important is how we're moving
> forward. Our Odyssey solution is an innovative mission-critical x86
> platform that will offer customers a transition to open standards-based
> architectures."
>
> Interesting, newly acquired Autonomy has seen revenue decline following
> acquisition from HP. (HP is kicking out the founder and replacing with
> its own staff).
>
> In the questions and asnwers:
> ##
> Even in industry standard servers, which people say to me all the time,
> isn't that a commodity business? Not if we can help it, it shouldn't be.
> Look at our next-generation Gen 8 ProLiant servers.Look at Moonshot,look
> at Odyssey.These are things that redefine that category,and that's the
> thing that we want to invest in.
> ##
>
> Moonshot is the very low energy consumption servers. Odyssey is the
> Superdome class based on x86 (glorified blade servers).

Fwiw, if I remember rightly, Moonshot does not and maybe never will
run Windows. Moonshot is ARM based, and the evidence at the moment is
that the Wintel alliance doesn't currently want the Windows that
people know and (some people) love to run on any hardware other than
x86.

In principle Moonshot looks like a smart move on HP's part. In
practice, your typical corporate IT department has been certified
Microsoft dependent for years, so Moonshot's market is likely big
corporates at one end and at the other end small or tiny companies, at
both ends requiring enough sense from the tin supplier and the end
customer to realise that a Wintel box is not always the answer. How
big is that market? It wasn't big enough for Alpha and it isn't big
enough for IA64, but beyond that I have no idea. There's two decades
of Wintel-dependence for many IT people to unlearn.

Anybody fancy VMS (32bit only) native on ARM? VMS on SIMH on ARM Linux
is probably doable today without a huge amount of effort, if it's not
already been done. I believe it's been done for Android, downloadable
as precompiled binaries from the marketplace, and what is Android if
not Google-hobbled Linux for ARM?

The volume market (one or two sockets and no manageability) in servers
*is* commodity business, whatever HP might want people to think.

What does Odyssey offer that can't sensibly be addressed by today's
high end Proliant? I leave that to you, dear reader. And what will be
the RoI from Odyssey?

Getting rid of the Compaq name (the "impairment analysis")? Why? If
you want a server or even a decent laptop, the Compaq name was always
a better place to start than the HP name. (Presario, on the other
hand, *is* better forgotten).

As for Autonomy? Who ever understood their business model (and their
business) anyway?

Have a lot of fun.

[AEF]

What? You can complain to Google and they'll actually respond?

AEF

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

I have read Arne's post several times...
Where did he say that Google respond? I think that
he wrote that they act (and that might be automated).

[AEF]

On May 27, 1:07 pm, Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik.soderh...@telia.com>

Well, depends how you define "respond". If you define it as
"to reply", you're right. If you define it as "to react", as in "his
back injury has failed to respond to treatment", then I'm right. If
Google "acts", you can consider that a "response", in which case they
"respond".

Getting back to you on an old topic:

About reading PDF files on the monitor: the print is too small. Make
it bigger, you say. Now you've split pages, which is especially
annoying with two-column pieces and figures. And figures are usually
blurry and even harder to read. (Maybe it's partly caused by my cheap
ViewSonic monitor at work.) And it almost never comes up the right
size in the first place so as to have one page per screen. Basically a
no-win situation, unless you print it.

OK.

AEF