Sign in / up

back to article HP Inc – the no-drama one – is actually doing fine with PCs, printers

On a day when Meg Whitman, CEO of its sibling HPE, announced her departure from the biz, HP Inc revealed its slow and steady progress in two tough markets. The printers and PCs half of the Hewlett-Packard split closed out a $52bn fiscal year that saw revenues climb by eight per cent on the previous 12 months. For the fourth …

COMMENTS

Post your comment
House rules Send corrections
Add to 'My topics' unstar *
  1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    Credit where credit due

    I bought my last laptop from them. And will probably buy the next one. And the next one after that if they are still around.

    Why? Because the service manual is readily available and the whole thing is serviceable and repairable.

    Only basic trim clips and standard Philips screws. Not even Torx. No glue, no weird special screws. No need for a heat gun to open it. As things SHOULD BE.

    32 1 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Credit where credit dueIt has been a decade...

      Since I last got a hp laptop. I really liked thier offerings, but then saw far too many of the consumer models have screen hinges fail. Good to know they learned from that mistake if the build quality has gone up.

      5 0 Reply
    2. Joe Werner Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Credit where credit due

      So was my ASUS netbook - replaced the keyboard and battery after 3 years of daily use. My new(ish...) Lenovo can also be taken apart easily.

      I have to say that I like Torx. I am slowly replacing all bolts on my bikes (from hex / Allen) to Torx. Hex bolts get worse the smaller they are. Admittedly many bolts should not be torqued beyond 5Nm, and you really should grease the threads, and that will (should... ice, snow, salt, rain, salty air at the coast) make your life easy enough a few years down the line.

      And Phillips is.... shite, even worse than pozidrive. Give me Torx!

      6 1 Reply
    3. James 29
      Reply Icon

      Re: Credit where credit due

      Yep, their business laptops are second to none. Good quality and easy to repair/service/upgrade

      5 0 Reply
      1. redneck
        Reply Icon

        Re: Credit where credit due

        I'd say all their business class systems are second to none. I have an elitedesk 705 G1 desktop mini. It has been great so far. (coming up on four years old.) It came with a 3yr warranty, with next day onsite service. Pretty good for something that cost $800. I've used that warranty once.

        As an additional bonus, I'm still able to download firmware updates for the system. These occur automatically at boot time. Had this been an HPE system, I'd have lost access to system firmware updates after the warranty ran out.

        Yes, my next desktop system will be a business class HP system.

        0 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Revenues of $13.9bn were up 11 per cent from Q4 2016 and beat analyst estimates of $13.4bn

    Piffle. Anyone can look good if you choose the right metrics!. How many people did they manage to fire in the last 12 months? How much work did they manage to shift to the Indian subcontinent? What progress on Project "Logan's Run", ensuring that no staff have more than 10 years experience?

    Disaster on all counts I'll warrant. Meg "Mugabe" Whitman would never have stood for it.

    7 3 Reply
    1. Sandtitz Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      WTF?

      "Revenues of $13.9bn were up 11 per cent from Q4 2016 and beat analyst estimates of $13.4bn"

      "Piffle. Anyone can look good if you choose the right metrics!"

      True. But growth in sales are still growth in sales. Revenue isn't profit.

      "How many people did they manage to fire in the last 12 months?"

      I don't know. How many? You seem to be in the know, so please enlighten.

      You're probably thinking of HPE which has had big layoff orgies.

      "How much work did they manage to shift to the Indian subcontinent?"

      I have no idea. Why don't you tell us or stop with the innuendo.

      Then again I'm not working for HP nor am I American so I don't care as long as the products and services offered are not failing me. I'm not against non-white workforce if the results are fine.

      As far as I can see, capitalism doesn't mean patriotism. It's about supply-and-demand, and competition in the market. This means not only products and services, but also labor. Do you disagree?

      3 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That sound you hear

    It's Hewlett and Packard looking down from Engineer Heaven at Meg Whitman, and laughing their heads off.

    8 0 Reply
  4. stephanh

    Too bad they misspelled their name.

    It should be "HP Ink".

    11 0 Reply
    1. EarthDog
      Reply Icon

      Re: Too bad they misspelled their name.

      Too bad they didn't choose a squid as their mascot.

      1 0 Reply
  5. Missing Semicolon Silver badge
    Happy

    Whodathunk

    that actually making real stuff that people want is more successful than me-too cloudy-cloud and penny-pinched-into-oblivion services?

    6 0 Reply
  6. Uncle Ron

    Simple

    IMHO, HP PC's and Printers are absolutely where they are because they understand DISTRIBUTION. Don't get me wrong, if they had crappy products, intelligent distribution wouldn't matter, but they absolutely understand what makes a reseller/retailer tick, and they know how to get the most out of all their distribution channels without tripping over themselves. Importantly, they -respect- their channels as partners, and not as 'underlings,' or as 'a necessary evil,' as I feel IBM and others do. This intelligence has been true at HP for decades.

    HP engineer good products, but lots of companies do that. What sets HP apart is their totally separate (from engineering) cadre of people that -live- in the shoes of resellers and retailers. And that cadre is treated with respect -inside- HP as well. This is not new for HP. It is a tradition at HP that was probably started by some management genius 30 or 40 years ago. Again, IMHO.

    3 0 Reply
  7. J. Cook Silver badge

    Ah, printers...

    I dunno; If HP Ink can maybe knock off with the whole 'let's put a timebomb in our firmware updates that kills the use of third-party ink and toner' shenanigans, I might be inclined to start recommending them again. Oh, and either dropping the price of the damn carts, or increasing the amount of ink/toner in them to account for it.

    That could also be just the consumer market; I'm more likely to buy a refurbished ex-business printer next time around. (that, and business class printers don't necessarily require a super special print driver...)

    0 0 Reply
    1. MonkeyCee
      Reply Icon

      Re: Ah, printers...

      No offense intended, but why would anyone have a problem with ink cart prices? Either you *need* an inkjet for whatever application you're using it for (plotters, certain photo reproduction, correct colour matching etc) or you shouldn't be using an inkjet.

      My general principle is that a B+W laser will do almost all the printing that anyone needs and to go to a professional printing shop for the other stuff. A laser can be left powered off until needed, and will work consistently well until the toner runs out. Replacement carts aren't cheap, but you can be fairly sure of how many pages you'll get out of it.

      They also tend to consistently work OK off even the most basic of print drivers.

      Most of the big box stores around these parts do seem to offer a dizzying array of (IMHO) overpriced inkjets, with a pair of laser printers (big and small). Whilst the lasers appear to come from different manufacturers, under the hood they are all HP. Which is good, since they're built to last ~10 years.

      1 0 Reply
  8. EarthDog

    Not just personal printers

    But also large commercial grade 3D printers. Anecdote, a guy I ride the bus with works with a manufacturing company which just bought 12 3D printer from HP at about 50K USD each. They will use them for rapid prototyping typing and creating molds for blow mold plastics.

    1 0 Reply

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

Forgotten password ?

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like