Jed Rothwell wrote:
From a N. Y. Times editorial today:
"Hewlett's board says it isn't considering retreating from Ms. Fiorina's goal of offering a smorgasbord of high-tech goodies to businesses and consumers. Let's hope that's just machismo. The best thing Hewlett could do would be to get rid of the bells and whistles Ms. Fiorina acquired, and focus on its core - and enormously profitable - business: printers and cartridges."
Jed adds: . . . enormously profitable until maybe five years from now, when someone finally comes out with viable e-books and e-paper with resolution and contrast as good as real paper. Then the company tanks.
Never put all your eggs in one technological basket.
Um ... it's worth remembering that HP was already a computer company before Carly decided to buy Compaq.
In fact, HP has, from time to time, been in the forefront of the workstation market. The PARisc architecture was, for a time, the fastest thing around. Admittedly that was quite a while back.
Compaq bought Dec and continued to operate it as a high end line within the Compaq family -- the Dec systems weren't really in the same market as other Compaq products. Then Carly bought Compaq ... that's it for Dec, that's it for Compaq, and HP got trashed in the process. What good is it to bring a second (or third) company inhouse that does exactly what you're already doing? Not much. They didn't need the products, and they didn't get the best of the people, so what did they gain? A sophisticated high-performance operating system? No, they threw Tru64 overboard along with the Alpha. Some buildings, maybe? A sales staff? Loyal customers? Hahhah.
The mistake the board made was in not getting rid of her five years earlier.
