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back to article HP is 80 per cent closer to breaking up. Now, about the IT estate...

The majority of the work to split HP in two is behind the organisation, according to chief ops and tech man John Hinshaw. Now there’s just the small matter of separating the not-insubstantial IT estate. Talking at HP Discover in Las Vegas, the COO said 80 per cent of the groundwork to become HP Inc (PCs and printers) and …

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  1. swschrad

    success will be measured by how many "he did it"s are realized

    you know, the old finger-pointing exercise that has been endemic in IT forever. "oh, no, the issue is over there with BlatherCo." "well, actually, you need to talk to VitaHost."

    how much of the crudware resident on corporate PCs ends up in Enterprise, and how many apps in Enterprise evolved over in PC, that is. "uhhh, it appears the core middleware in our disk hives came from PC, and they got the developers. we're in countdown to a fatal exception here."

    I'm glad I'm miles away from a front row seat these days.

    1 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    IT is quite as big of an issue as you'd think

    HP currently operates under a model where internal IT is a 'customer' of their managed services arm. When they split off the PC/printer division, it just becomes another customer.

    Obviously there are many many systems that process data for both, so there's still a ton of work required, but at least HP Inc can utilize the same datacenter infrastructure.

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  3. FozzyBear

    I can just here the arguments in the board room now

    Exec 1: You can take this product

    exec 2: Piss off im not taking responsibility for that piece of crap, you take it.

    exec 1: no way.

    Rinse and repeat 75,000 times.

    1 0 Reply
    1. Captain DaFt
      Reply Icon

      Re: I can just here the arguments in the board room now

      "Exec 1: You can take this product

      exec 2: Piss off im not taking responsibility for that piece of crap, you take it.

      exec 1: no way.

      Rinse and repeat 75,000 times."

      If it's like meetings I've been privy too, it'll be more along the lines of:

      "OK, we'll table this discussion until another time."

      Next meeting:

      "Is everyone here?"

      "No, Jim couldn't make it, family emergency."

      "OK, first order of business; Jim gets appointed head of the department to handle 'product'. All in favor?"

      "AYE!"

      "All opposed?"

      "... "

      "The motion is carried. Sheryl, send Jim's office a notice congratulating him on his promotion."

      (Based on a true event. 'Jim' resigned as soon as he found out."

      0 0 Reply
  4. Shannon Jacobs
    Holmes

    I can barely recall when HP was one of the best companies in the world...

    The decline especially bothers me since so much of it is linked to two women executives, and I would like to see women succeed. HP is NOT succeeding and, speaking as an HP shareholder, I am quite confident this will NOT make the situation better.

    Most of the problem is just the anti-freedom corruption of the American economic system. The secret is that real freedom is about meaningful choice without coercion. Freedom and large monopolistic profits don't go together. Instead of dividing highly successful companies to specialize more and reduce choices, they should force the top companies to split into competing companies and give us more freedom and choices.

    As a shareholder of HP, in the example to hand, I would wind up with equal value in shares the new competitors. As they competed and diverged, I might sell one in favor of the other, but if the competition leads to more innovation and growth, I'm still going to win by sitting on both of them...

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I can barely recall when HP was one of the best companies in the world...

      I don't really understand what you mean, but anyway, as a shareholder aren't you only interested in two things: 1) Did the share price go up last quarter? 2) Does it look like it will go up next quarter? How these results are achieved is not your department.

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      1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: I can barely recall when HP was one of the best companies in the world...

        Not at all. Being a shareholder gives me a voice (however small) in how a company is run. I get to vote for board members, and those board members make promises to me (the shareholder) about how they will run the company.

        If I hold shares in a shoe company and that company is using child labour I have two choices: sell my shares to someone who doesn't have a problem with that, or use my small voice to agitate for change. I generally prefer the latter. All that is required for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing.

        1 0 Reply

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