Showing posts with label Hewlett-Packard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hewlett-Packard. Show all posts
Monday, September 17, 2012
HP to cut 27,000 jobs
The fact that Hewlett-Packard has started a wave of layoffs isn't really a story, as it really represents business as usual. That this isn't a story is a story.
Believe it or not, there was a time when HP didn't lay off employees. Seeing workers as assets that were valued rather than disposable goods was part of a philosophy known as the HP Way. Indeed, it is fair to say no company so huge has ever treated its workers so well as HP did. That all changed under the leadership of Carly Fiorina, who instituted the first wave of job cuts during her time as CEO from 1999-2005. The current round of layoffs merely represent the realities of a new business philosophy.
(A little side note: I know a lot about the HP Way because my dad was an HP executive who took great pride in how well the company treated its workers. He left early in 2001, seeing the writing on the wall that Fioriana was an abusive CEO who didn't see the value of those beneath her.)
Perhaps it isn't a coincidence that Fioriana was the GOP nominee in 2010 for the California Senate race. Likewise, Meg Whitman, the current CEO, was the 2010 GOP nominee for California governor. Both are noted for being "moderate" Republicans, whatever the hell that means. Of course, the connection to the Republican Party and HP isn't new: David Packard, the business brains behind HP, was a Deputy Defense Secretary under Richard Nixon. Despite his conservative street cred, it was he who fully embraced the no layoff philosophy, believing workers would only achieve at their fullest if they knew the company they served stood behind them.
Today, there are really no corporate executives, either Democrat or Republican in political loyalties, who share Mr. Packard's sympathetic and progressive outlook. In this sense, the job cuts at HP don't represent a change in merely the philosophy of CEOs ore the Republican Party, but a change of view in workers from the entire political establishment...
Source:
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/HP-to-cut-27-000-jobs-on-weak-forecast-3581237.php
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Foxconn Plans to Lift Pay Sharply at Factories in China
DAVID BARBOZAFebruary 18, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/technology/foxconn-to-raise-salaries-for-workers-by-up-to-25.html
BEIJING — Foxconn Technology, one of the biggest manufacturers of products for Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and other electronics companies, said Saturday that it would sharply raise worker salaries at its Chinese factories.
Foxconn said that salaries for many workers would immediately jump by 16 to 25 percent, to about $400 a month, before overtime.
The company also said it would reduce overtime hours at its factories.
Labor rights groups say that over the years, many Foxconn plants have violated Chinese labor laws by pushing workers to endure excessive amounts of overtime.
Criticism has grown over working conditions at several Apple suppliers in China, including Foxconn, which employs more than one million workers to assemble some of the world’s most popular devices.
Apple announced last Monday that the Fair Labor Association, a nonprofit group, would provide independent audits of its supplier factories in China and elsewhere. Apple said the group’s findings would be made public. The association began inspecting Foxconn operations in China this week.
Apple and Foxconn, which is based in Taiwan, have strongly denied allegations that the workers are treated poorly. But Apple has acknowledged in its own audits that some of its suppliers in China violate Apple’s own code of conduct, with instances of child labor, forced overtime and unsafe working conditions and evidence that employees are sometimes exposed to hazardous and toxic chemicals.
In recent years, Foxconn facilities in China have experienced a series of worker suicides, and labor rights groups have documented varied abuses.
Last year, four workers were killed and about 20 were injured because of a dust explosion at a Chinese factory that was producing the Apple iPad.
According to Bloomberg News, the auditor at the Fair Labor Association said recently that he had already found “tons of issues” at Foxconn plants. He did not detail the problems.
A Foxconn spokesman could not be reached late Saturday.
A version of this article appeared in print on February 19, 2012, on page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Foxconn Plans To Sharply Lift Workers’ Pay.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/technology/foxconn-to-raise-salaries-for-workers-by-up-to-25.html
BEIJING — Foxconn Technology, one of the biggest manufacturers of products for Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and other electronics companies, said Saturday that it would sharply raise worker salaries at its Chinese factories.
Foxconn said that salaries for many workers would immediately jump by 16 to 25 percent, to about $400 a month, before overtime.
The company also said it would reduce overtime hours at its factories.
Labor rights groups say that over the years, many Foxconn plants have violated Chinese labor laws by pushing workers to endure excessive amounts of overtime.
Criticism has grown over working conditions at several Apple suppliers in China, including Foxconn, which employs more than one million workers to assemble some of the world’s most popular devices.
Apple announced last Monday that the Fair Labor Association, a nonprofit group, would provide independent audits of its supplier factories in China and elsewhere. Apple said the group’s findings would be made public. The association began inspecting Foxconn operations in China this week.
Apple and Foxconn, which is based in Taiwan, have strongly denied allegations that the workers are treated poorly. But Apple has acknowledged in its own audits that some of its suppliers in China violate Apple’s own code of conduct, with instances of child labor, forced overtime and unsafe working conditions and evidence that employees are sometimes exposed to hazardous and toxic chemicals.
In recent years, Foxconn facilities in China have experienced a series of worker suicides, and labor rights groups have documented varied abuses.
Last year, four workers were killed and about 20 were injured because of a dust explosion at a Chinese factory that was producing the Apple iPad.
According to Bloomberg News, the auditor at the Fair Labor Association said recently that he had already found “tons of issues” at Foxconn plants. He did not detail the problems.
A Foxconn spokesman could not be reached late Saturday.
A version of this article appeared in print on February 19, 2012, on page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Foxconn Plans To Sharply Lift Workers’ Pay.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Great American Garage Entrepreneurs
October 6, 2011
http://www.history.com/news/2011/10/06/great-american-garage-entrepreneurs
Setting up shop in a garage may sound like a cliché, but did you know that a number of thriving American businesses really got their start that way? One of the most famous examples is, of course, Apple Inc., founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, who died Wednesday at age 56, and his friend Steve Wozniak. Find out about their brainchild and other major companies that trace their roots to humble birthplaces.
Apple Inc.
On April Fool’s Day in 1976, 21-year-old Steve Jobs and 25-year-old Steve Wozniak established Apple Computer, later known simply as Apple Inc. Pioneers in the burgeoning world of personal computers, the pair worked out of Jobs’ parents’ garage in Los Altos, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. Jobs, a college dropout, became one of the great innovators of the digital age, transforming not just his original field but also music, animation and mobile communications. He died at 56 on October 5, 2011, after a long struggle with cancer. Apple’s notable products include the Macintosh computer line, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, iTunes, the Mac OS X operating system and Final Cut Studio.
Hewlett-Packard
Considered the first American technology business to launch behind a garage door, Hewlett-Packard was founded in 1939 by Bill Hewlett and David Packard, who had scraped together an initial capital investment of $538. At the time, Packard and his new wife Lucile lived in an apartment next door and Hewlett camped out in a shed on the property, located in Palo Alto, California. After developing a range of electronic products, the company entered the computer market in 1966 and is now one of the world’s largest technology corporations. The one-car garage where it all began is a designated California historic landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Walt Disney Company
In 1923, the Missouri-born cartoonist Walt Disney moved to Los Angeles with his brother Roy to make short films that combined animation and live action. They spent several months producing their first series, the “Alice Comedies,” out of their uncle Robert’s garage before relocating to the back of a realty office and finally to a studio. Now the world’s largest media conglomerate, the Walt Disney Company became a leader in film, television, travel, leisure, music and publishing. In 2006, it acquired Pixar Studios from another veteran of a California garage: Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer. Robert Disney’s garage was saved from demolition in 1984 and donated to the Stanley Ranch Museum.
Mattel
When Ruth and Elliot Handler, who had met in an industrial design course, started making picture frames in their California garage, they probably never thought their venture—Mattel—would grow into the world’s biggest toy manufacturer. More or less by accident, they wound up crafting dollhouse furniture and later children’s playthings out of spare wood scraps. In the late 1950s, Ruth determined there was a market for dolls that looked like “grown-ups”; ignoring her husband’s objections, she designed a prototype and named it after their daughter, Barbie. (Ken, named for their son, followed soon after.) Mattel struck gold with the new line, and in 1968 Ruth became the company’s president.
Google
Long after Hewlett-Packard and Apple Computer made their unpretentious debuts, another technology powerhouse came screeching out of a Silicon Valley garage. After developing a groundbreaking search engine for a research project, Stanford University students Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google in a garage owned by Susan Wojcicki, a friend and future employee. The company, which has since branched out into numerous other areas, now runs the most visited websites on the Internet and boasts locations around the world. In 2006, Google bought Wojcicki’s house—and the garage where its vast empire began.
Yankee Candle Company
In 1969, 17-year-old Michael Kittredge of South Hadley, Massachusetts, couldn’t dig up enough cash to buy his mother a Christmas present. On a whim, he melted down some crayons in his parents’ garage and made her a scented candle. When neighbors began expressing interest, Kittredge, who needed a hobby since his rock band had just broken up, recruited some friends and began churning out candles. By the following year, the booming business had taken over the Kittredge home, so the young entrepreneurs moved into a dilapidated mill. Today, the Yankee Candle Company is the leading U.S. candle manufacturer, with hundreds of retail locations, international distribution and multiple product lines.
http://www.history.com/news/2011/10/06/great-american-garage-entrepreneurs
Setting up shop in a garage may sound like a cliché, but did you know that a number of thriving American businesses really got their start that way? One of the most famous examples is, of course, Apple Inc., founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, who died Wednesday at age 56, and his friend Steve Wozniak. Find out about their brainchild and other major companies that trace their roots to humble birthplaces.
Apple Inc.
On April Fool’s Day in 1976, 21-year-old Steve Jobs and 25-year-old Steve Wozniak established Apple Computer, later known simply as Apple Inc. Pioneers in the burgeoning world of personal computers, the pair worked out of Jobs’ parents’ garage in Los Altos, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. Jobs, a college dropout, became one of the great innovators of the digital age, transforming not just his original field but also music, animation and mobile communications. He died at 56 on October 5, 2011, after a long struggle with cancer. Apple’s notable products include the Macintosh computer line, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, iTunes, the Mac OS X operating system and Final Cut Studio.
Hewlett-Packard
Considered the first American technology business to launch behind a garage door, Hewlett-Packard was founded in 1939 by Bill Hewlett and David Packard, who had scraped together an initial capital investment of $538. At the time, Packard and his new wife Lucile lived in an apartment next door and Hewlett camped out in a shed on the property, located in Palo Alto, California. After developing a range of electronic products, the company entered the computer market in 1966 and is now one of the world’s largest technology corporations. The one-car garage where it all began is a designated California historic landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Walt Disney Company
In 1923, the Missouri-born cartoonist Walt Disney moved to Los Angeles with his brother Roy to make short films that combined animation and live action. They spent several months producing their first series, the “Alice Comedies,” out of their uncle Robert’s garage before relocating to the back of a realty office and finally to a studio. Now the world’s largest media conglomerate, the Walt Disney Company became a leader in film, television, travel, leisure, music and publishing. In 2006, it acquired Pixar Studios from another veteran of a California garage: Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer. Robert Disney’s garage was saved from demolition in 1984 and donated to the Stanley Ranch Museum.
Mattel
When Ruth and Elliot Handler, who had met in an industrial design course, started making picture frames in their California garage, they probably never thought their venture—Mattel—would grow into the world’s biggest toy manufacturer. More or less by accident, they wound up crafting dollhouse furniture and later children’s playthings out of spare wood scraps. In the late 1950s, Ruth determined there was a market for dolls that looked like “grown-ups”; ignoring her husband’s objections, she designed a prototype and named it after their daughter, Barbie. (Ken, named for their son, followed soon after.) Mattel struck gold with the new line, and in 1968 Ruth became the company’s president.
Long after Hewlett-Packard and Apple Computer made their unpretentious debuts, another technology powerhouse came screeching out of a Silicon Valley garage. After developing a groundbreaking search engine for a research project, Stanford University students Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google in a garage owned by Susan Wojcicki, a friend and future employee. The company, which has since branched out into numerous other areas, now runs the most visited websites on the Internet and boasts locations around the world. In 2006, Google bought Wojcicki’s house—and the garage where its vast empire began.
Yankee Candle Company
In 1969, 17-year-old Michael Kittredge of South Hadley, Massachusetts, couldn’t dig up enough cash to buy his mother a Christmas present. On a whim, he melted down some crayons in his parents’ garage and made her a scented candle. When neighbors began expressing interest, Kittredge, who needed a hobby since his rock band had just broken up, recruited some friends and began churning out candles. By the following year, the booming business had taken over the Kittredge home, so the young entrepreneurs moved into a dilapidated mill. Today, the Yankee Candle Company is the leading U.S. candle manufacturer, with hundreds of retail locations, international distribution and multiple product lines.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Is Amazon interested in buying WebOS from Hewlett-Packard?
September 30, 2011
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/09/amazon-is-latest-rumored-to-be-interested-in-buying-webos-from-hp-1.html
Amazon.com's Kindle Fire is a jump into the growing tablet market and a clear challenge to Apple's blockbuster ability to integrate hardware and software so seamlessly.
But what will Amazon's post-Fire moves look like as it seeks to build a major business in tablets, something only Apple has so far been able to pull off?
According to both VentureBeat and the New York Times site Deal Book, Amazon is considering buying the WebOS mobile operating system from the struggling Hewlett-Packard in a move to nab an OS of its own and to gain some mobile tech patents as well. Amazon officials were unavailable for comment on the rumors Friday.
Unlike Apple, Amazon doesn't own the software that will run on its tablet. Android is owned by Google, though Google shares its Android with the world at no cost and the version of Android that will run on the Fire is a build unique to Amazon.
But while Google doesn't charge for Android, others do. Microsoft, for example, is collecting royalties from Samsung for its use of Android and has agreements with other Android users, such as HTC, that pay Microsoft and/or call for shared patent portfolio licenses.
Google, known for its weak patent portfolio, is attempting to buy Motorola Mobility in both a move to help shore up its IP and get into the hardware business in a limited way.
HP bought Palm in April 2010 for $1.2 billion, mainly for WebOS, but in August the company gave up on making hardware for the operating system.
As pointed out by VentureBeat, HP has been eyeing Amazon as a possible partner for WebOS as far back as July, Jon Rubinstein, who was then leading HP's WebOS division, said in an interview with the website ThisIsMyNext. This was due to Amazon's potential to match WebOS with an ecosystem of content -- books, music, TV shows and movies.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/09/amazon-is-latest-rumored-to-be-interested-in-buying-webos-from-hp-1.html
Amazon.com's Kindle Fire is a jump into the growing tablet market and a clear challenge to Apple's blockbuster ability to integrate hardware and software so seamlessly.
But what will Amazon's post-Fire moves look like as it seeks to build a major business in tablets, something only Apple has so far been able to pull off?
According to both VentureBeat and the New York Times site Deal Book, Amazon is considering buying the WebOS mobile operating system from the struggling Hewlett-Packard in a move to nab an OS of its own and to gain some mobile tech patents as well. Amazon officials were unavailable for comment on the rumors Friday.
Unlike Apple, Amazon doesn't own the software that will run on its tablet. Android is owned by Google, though Google shares its Android with the world at no cost and the version of Android that will run on the Fire is a build unique to Amazon.
But while Google doesn't charge for Android, others do. Microsoft, for example, is collecting royalties from Samsung for its use of Android and has agreements with other Android users, such as HTC, that pay Microsoft and/or call for shared patent portfolio licenses.
Google, known for its weak patent portfolio, is attempting to buy Motorola Mobility in both a move to help shore up its IP and get into the hardware business in a limited way.
HP bought Palm in April 2010 for $1.2 billion, mainly for WebOS, but in August the company gave up on making hardware for the operating system.
As pointed out by VentureBeat, HP has been eyeing Amazon as a possible partner for WebOS as far back as July, Jon Rubinstein, who was then leading HP's WebOS division, said in an interview with the website ThisIsMyNext. This was due to Amazon's potential to match WebOS with an ecosystem of content -- books, music, TV shows and movies.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Significa
Released: West Memphis Three
After over 18 years in prison, and four years after crime scene DNA was presented that found no evidence linking the trio to the Arkansas murders. Credit Eddie Vedder and Johnny Depp with an assist on the statsheet for this one...
"They were convicted for being young, goth, Wiccan metalheads at the height of the Satanic Panic. Today they walk free.”
DangerousMinds.net
*
Bill Clinton Goes Vegan
As CNN Notes: "By the time he reached the White House, Bill Clinton's appetite was legend. He loved hamburgers, steaks, chicken enchiladas, barbecue and french fries but wasn't too picky. At one campaign stop in New Hampshire, he reportedly bought a dozen doughnuts and was working his way through the box until an aide stopped him." No more, as over the past year, Big Bad Bill has become Sweet William. Under the dietary guide of Dr. Dean Ornish, director of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, he has lost over 20 pounds feeding on a vegan diet:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/08/18/bill.clinton.diet.vegan
*
Carrie Fisher has lost 50 pounds since becoming a spokewoman for Jenny Craig, dropping to 130 pounds. She's reportedly thinking of putting on her metal bikini from Return of the Jedi again. Incidentally, Jabba the Hutt would be a good candidate for Weight Watchers...
*
Jim Thome: 600 Home Runs
And it still may not be enough to get in the Hall of Fame in the age of steroids...
*
America's Most Walkable Cities, 2011
1. New York
2. San Francisco
3. Boston
4. Chicago
5. Philadelphia
Source: Yahoo.com
*
Acquired: Motorola
By Google, giving them a smartphone maker to stay competitive with Apple, Nokia and Blackberry...
*
Discovered: Lager Beer DNA
The yeast behind the most popular alcoholic drink in the world comes from Argentina, of all places, according to scientists. It traveled from South America about 500 years ago to Germany. In return, Argentina was rewarded with Nazi war criminals. Thanks for the drink, though!!!
*
Diagnosed: Pat Summitt
With early stages of dementia. She has won a record 1071 games and 8 national titles as coach for the women's Tennessee Volunteers basketball team...
*
Married: Kim Kardashian
To some guy, we forget his name. Don't worry, she'll still appear in The Konformist wearing outfits that show off her ass...
*
RIP
The HP TouchPad, July 1 - August 18, 2011
It would be fun to blame this on Russell Brand, their dubious spokesman, but the real culprit is Apple, whose iPad Hewlett-Packard just couldn't compete with. And if HP can't compete, good luck to Motorola, Samsung or Blackberry. (Ironically, after the TouchPad discontinue was announced, its sales skyrocketed over the Internet due to tablets previously priced at $499 and $599 on sale for $99 and $149.) The TouchPad is the tip of the iceberg for HP changes, as they are planning to spinoff their PC business (even though they're the world's biggest PC maker, a title they've held since buying Compaq in 2002) and getting out of the smartphone biz (even though they only bought Palm last year for $1.2 billion as part of a strategy to become a smartphone-tablet giant.) If this sounds to you like HP is flailing around cluelessly, you're not alone:its stock dropped more than it has since Black Monday 1987 on the news...
The Burger King Mascot, 2003-11
For some reason, BK decided its creepy looking mascot was bad for business. He actually has a semi-respectable history, with previous incarnations starting in 1955...
Nick Ashford, 70
Half of the husband-wife Motown songwriting duo behind "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" and "Reach Out and Touch Somebody's Hand"...
Jerry Lieber, 78
Half of another great songwriting duo with Mike Stoller, penned such hits as "Hound Dog", "Jailhouse Rock", "Yakety Yak" and "King Creole"...
Mike Flanagan, 59
MLB pitcher who won 167 games in his career, including 23 in 1979 while winning the Cy Young for the Baltimore Orioles. He also was part of the last O's World Series team from 1983...
Joey Vento, 71
Owner of Geno's Steaks, founded in Philly in 1966 one of the city's two most famed makers of cheesesteaks...
Last but definitely not least, farewell to Steve Jobs as CEO of Apple, arguably the man who has changed America for the better more than anyone over the last decade. Normally, we don't gush about CEOs on The Konformist, but we'll make a deserved exception for him...
After over 18 years in prison, and four years after crime scene DNA was presented that found no evidence linking the trio to the Arkansas murders. Credit Eddie Vedder and Johnny Depp with an assist on the statsheet for this one...
"They were convicted for being young, goth, Wiccan metalheads at the height of the Satanic Panic. Today they walk free.”
DangerousMinds.net
*
Bill Clinton Goes Vegan
As CNN Notes: "By the time he reached the White House, Bill Clinton's appetite was legend. He loved hamburgers, steaks, chicken enchiladas, barbecue and french fries but wasn't too picky. At one campaign stop in New Hampshire, he reportedly bought a dozen doughnuts and was working his way through the box until an aide stopped him." No more, as over the past year, Big Bad Bill has become Sweet William. Under the dietary guide of Dr. Dean Ornish, director of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, he has lost over 20 pounds feeding on a vegan diet:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/08/18/bill.clinton.diet.vegan
*
Carrie Fisher has lost 50 pounds since becoming a spokewoman for Jenny Craig, dropping to 130 pounds. She's reportedly thinking of putting on her metal bikini from Return of the Jedi again. Incidentally, Jabba the Hutt would be a good candidate for Weight Watchers...
*
Jim Thome: 600 Home Runs
And it still may not be enough to get in the Hall of Fame in the age of steroids...
*
America's Most Walkable Cities, 2011
1. New York
2. San Francisco
3. Boston
4. Chicago
5. Philadelphia
Source: Yahoo.com
*
Acquired: Motorola
By Google, giving them a smartphone maker to stay competitive with Apple, Nokia and Blackberry...
*
Discovered: Lager Beer DNA
The yeast behind the most popular alcoholic drink in the world comes from Argentina, of all places, according to scientists. It traveled from South America about 500 years ago to Germany. In return, Argentina was rewarded with Nazi war criminals. Thanks for the drink, though!!!
*
Diagnosed: Pat Summitt
With early stages of dementia. She has won a record 1071 games and 8 national titles as coach for the women's Tennessee Volunteers basketball team...
*
Married: Kim Kardashian
To some guy, we forget his name. Don't worry, she'll still appear in The Konformist wearing outfits that show off her ass...
*
RIP
The HP TouchPad, July 1 - August 18, 2011
It would be fun to blame this on Russell Brand, their dubious spokesman, but the real culprit is Apple, whose iPad Hewlett-Packard just couldn't compete with. And if HP can't compete, good luck to Motorola, Samsung or Blackberry. (Ironically, after the TouchPad discontinue was announced, its sales skyrocketed over the Internet due to tablets previously priced at $499 and $599 on sale for $99 and $149.) The TouchPad is the tip of the iceberg for HP changes, as they are planning to spinoff their PC business (even though they're the world's biggest PC maker, a title they've held since buying Compaq in 2002) and getting out of the smartphone biz (even though they only bought Palm last year for $1.2 billion as part of a strategy to become a smartphone-tablet giant.) If this sounds to you like HP is flailing around cluelessly, you're not alone:its stock dropped more than it has since Black Monday 1987 on the news...
The Burger King Mascot, 2003-11
For some reason, BK decided its creepy looking mascot was bad for business. He actually has a semi-respectable history, with previous incarnations starting in 1955...
Nick Ashford, 70
Half of the husband-wife Motown songwriting duo behind "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" and "Reach Out and Touch Somebody's Hand"...
Jerry Lieber, 78
Half of another great songwriting duo with Mike Stoller, penned such hits as "Hound Dog", "Jailhouse Rock", "Yakety Yak" and "King Creole"...
Mike Flanagan, 59
MLB pitcher who won 167 games in his career, including 23 in 1979 while winning the Cy Young for the Baltimore Orioles. He also was part of the last O's World Series team from 1983...
Joey Vento, 71
Owner of Geno's Steaks, founded in Philly in 1966 one of the city's two most famed makers of cheesesteaks...
Last but definitely not least, farewell to Steve Jobs as CEO of Apple, arguably the man who has changed America for the better more than anyone over the last decade. Normally, we don't gush about CEOs on The Konformist, but we'll make a deserved exception for him...
Saturday, May 28, 2011
The HP 12c Cult
From The Wall Street Journal:
Matthew Rothman bought an HP 12c financial calculator for his first job out of college in 1989.
Years later, he still has the same calculator. And he still uses it constantly, just like thousands of other 12c enthusiasts.
"Whenever I switch jobs, I just peel the old business card that is on the back and tape my newest one on," says Mr. Rothman, head of quantitative equity strategies at Barclays Capital in New York.
Sales of the device, which debuted in 1981, haven't slipped even after its manufacturer, Hewlett-Packard Co., introduced more-advanced devices or even, two years ago, a 12c iPhone application, which replicates all the calculator's functions, the company says.
"Once you learned it on the 12c, there was no need to change," says David Carter, chief investment officer of New York wealth-management firm Lenox Advisors, who has owned his 12c for 22 years and still keeps it on his desk. "It's not like the math was changing."
Thirty years after the launch of the 12c, it's still commonplace for financial analysts filing into a conference room to set down their calculators next to their papers and cellphones.
Indeed, the 12c, which costs $70 on H-P's website, is H-P's best-selling calculator of all time, though the company won't reveal how many units it has sold over the years. (A standard calculator costs about $10.) Its chief competitor is Texas Instruments' $28 BA II Plus, which is the only other calculator test-takers are permitted to use on the official CFA exam.
The 12c is slim, black and gold, and rectangular, just over five inches wide by three inches high. It runs on an unconventional operating system called "Reverse Polish Notation," which eschews parentheses and equal signs in an effort to run long calculations more efficiently.
That may be one reason users are reluctant to switch. "I've become so addicted to it that I am unable to use the iPhone calculator correctly," says John Lynch, chief equity strategist at Wells Fargo Funds Management Group in Charlotte, N.C.
The system tends to render the calculator mystifying to the novice user. Senior portfolio managers, who use it to calculate bond yields, rates of return and present value, among other things, say they enjoy watching their younger colleagues struggle to master its quirks...
Wall Street's Cult Calculator Turns 30
KRISTINA PETERSON
MAY 4, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703841904576257440326458056.html
Matthew Rothman bought an HP 12c financial calculator for his first job out of college in 1989.
Years later, he still has the same calculator. And he still uses it constantly, just like thousands of other 12c enthusiasts.
"Whenever I switch jobs, I just peel the old business card that is on the back and tape my newest one on," says Mr. Rothman, head of quantitative equity strategies at Barclays Capital in New York.
Sales of the device, which debuted in 1981, haven't slipped even after its manufacturer, Hewlett-Packard Co., introduced more-advanced devices or even, two years ago, a 12c iPhone application, which replicates all the calculator's functions, the company says.
"Once you learned it on the 12c, there was no need to change," says David Carter, chief investment officer of New York wealth-management firm Lenox Advisors, who has owned his 12c for 22 years and still keeps it on his desk. "It's not like the math was changing."
Thirty years after the launch of the 12c, it's still commonplace for financial analysts filing into a conference room to set down their calculators next to their papers and cellphones.
Indeed, the 12c, which costs $70 on H-P's website, is H-P's best-selling calculator of all time, though the company won't reveal how many units it has sold over the years. (A standard calculator costs about $10.) Its chief competitor is Texas Instruments' $28 BA II Plus, which is the only other calculator test-takers are permitted to use on the official CFA exam.
The 12c is slim, black and gold, and rectangular, just over five inches wide by three inches high. It runs on an unconventional operating system called "Reverse Polish Notation," which eschews parentheses and equal signs in an effort to run long calculations more efficiently.
That may be one reason users are reluctant to switch. "I've become so addicted to it that I am unable to use the iPhone calculator correctly," says John Lynch, chief equity strategist at Wells Fargo Funds Management Group in Charlotte, N.C.
The system tends to render the calculator mystifying to the novice user. Senior portfolio managers, who use it to calculate bond yields, rates of return and present value, among other things, say they enjoy watching their younger colleagues struggle to master its quirks...
Wall Street's Cult Calculator Turns 30
KRISTINA PETERSON
MAY 4, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703841904576257440326458056.html
Monday, March 14, 2011
Tablet Computer for $200?
A great article by Brett Arends was in the WSJ (inside joke: sorry, JT) about his desire to not pay $500 bucks for an iPad, much less $400 (or, as my pal Scott Rose of ScottWorld.com has pointed out, $349 for a refurbished iPad.) What did he end up paying? "Less than $200... and about 20 minutes of my time."
How'd he do it? Arends explains:
I bought a Barnes & Noble Nook Color tablet (for $190 plus tax from a temporary online promotion, down from the usual $250). And then I downloaded a very simple, perfectly legal software fix from the Internet that turned it into a fully functioning tablet running on Google's Android platform. The fix, known as a "rooting," unlocks Barnes & Noble's proprietary overlay. The instructions came via Ars Technica, a reputable site devoted to technology, and were pretty easy to follow.
I wasn't really expecting it to work. I tried it as an experiment. But the results were remarkable.
The Nook Color, which was designed mainly for reading books and magazines, is about half the size of an iPad or a Xoom. It weighs about 30% less. It runs on WiFi, but not 3G. It has an absolutely superb screen. And, once you've unlocked the software, it runs many Android applications, from email to news readers TweetDeck to, yes, Angry Birds.
It even, ironically, runs the Kindle app from Barnes & Noble's rival Amazon.com. So I can now use my Nook Color to read Kindle books.
Be aware that you perform this software hack entirely at your own risk. Barnes & Noble says it invalidates your warranty. The process ran smoothly for me, but when I read the Internet chat rooms, I found at least a few people had had problems. If it goes wrong, you're on your own.
Of course, it's hardly the same as an iPad or a Xoom or a Galaxy. It doesn't have any cameras. It has a slower processor. It's not for power users. The video support is pretty limited. A few Android programs still won't run on it. And dedicated gamers will doubtless find it frustrating.
But as a basic tablet, it's absolutely fine for me—and, I suspect, a lot of people. Indeed, I happen to prefer it to bigger rivals, because it actually slips into my overcoat pocket. (I hate having to carry things around.)
Arends concludes with some observations, the first one being that the Nook is underrated and B&N needs to turn it into a tablet. On this score, he's 100% correct: it appears B&N has been caught up in its own idea of what the Nook should be used for rather than realize what the customers want to use it for. The winners in business realize that the customer's desires always trump their own plans. B&N is hurting: they need a winner, and Nook, if marketed as a cheap but effective tablet, is a winner.
His second point, however, is even more important, that "tablets are probably going to become cheap, near-commodity items, and maybe sooner than you think.
Think about this. Barnes & Noble — a company that is, ahem, hardly in the forefront of technological innovation — has managed to put together a pretty good Android tablet from scratch in short order, and is selling it for $250 (and even less if, like me, you catch a promotion). It's not a top-of-the-range model, but it does include a superb screen — and analysts will tell you that's typically one of the most expensive parts of a tablet.
Investors in Apple, Motorola Mobility, Samsung, Hewlett-Packard, Research In Motion and others are hoping for great things from tablet computers. It's all anyone wants to talk about—the huge profits to come from all these tablets and the "cloud computing" services they use. Apple alone is the second-most-valuable company in the world, with an enterprise value of more than $300 billion.
Count me as deeply Missourian about the long-term profits likely to come from this entire industry. In the short run, there may be fantastic money to be made. In the long term, tablets will be a dime a dozen. Every platform will have all the apps you need. Any brand or model is going to have a tough challenge maintaining a competitive advantage over another. Someday we're going to look back and laugh at the day when people thought tablets — or smartphones — were exciting and profitable businesses to be in.
If Barnes & Noble can do it, anyone can."
Move Over, Apple! My Tablet Cost $200
BRETT ARENDS
MARCH 9, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703662804576188901890884360.html
How'd he do it? Arends explains:
I bought a Barnes & Noble Nook Color tablet (for $190 plus tax from a temporary online promotion, down from the usual $250). And then I downloaded a very simple, perfectly legal software fix from the Internet that turned it into a fully functioning tablet running on Google's Android platform. The fix, known as a "rooting," unlocks Barnes & Noble's proprietary overlay. The instructions came via Ars Technica, a reputable site devoted to technology, and were pretty easy to follow.
I wasn't really expecting it to work. I tried it as an experiment. But the results were remarkable.
The Nook Color, which was designed mainly for reading books and magazines, is about half the size of an iPad or a Xoom. It weighs about 30% less. It runs on WiFi, but not 3G. It has an absolutely superb screen. And, once you've unlocked the software, it runs many Android applications, from email to news readers TweetDeck to, yes, Angry Birds.
It even, ironically, runs the Kindle app from Barnes & Noble's rival Amazon.com. So I can now use my Nook Color to read Kindle books.
Be aware that you perform this software hack entirely at your own risk. Barnes & Noble says it invalidates your warranty. The process ran smoothly for me, but when I read the Internet chat rooms, I found at least a few people had had problems. If it goes wrong, you're on your own.
Of course, it's hardly the same as an iPad or a Xoom or a Galaxy. It doesn't have any cameras. It has a slower processor. It's not for power users. The video support is pretty limited. A few Android programs still won't run on it. And dedicated gamers will doubtless find it frustrating.
But as a basic tablet, it's absolutely fine for me—and, I suspect, a lot of people. Indeed, I happen to prefer it to bigger rivals, because it actually slips into my overcoat pocket. (I hate having to carry things around.)
Arends concludes with some observations, the first one being that the Nook is underrated and B&N needs to turn it into a tablet. On this score, he's 100% correct: it appears B&N has been caught up in its own idea of what the Nook should be used for rather than realize what the customers want to use it for. The winners in business realize that the customer's desires always trump their own plans. B&N is hurting: they need a winner, and Nook, if marketed as a cheap but effective tablet, is a winner.
His second point, however, is even more important, that "tablets are probably going to become cheap, near-commodity items, and maybe sooner than you think.
Think about this. Barnes & Noble — a company that is, ahem, hardly in the forefront of technological innovation — has managed to put together a pretty good Android tablet from scratch in short order, and is selling it for $250 (and even less if, like me, you catch a promotion). It's not a top-of-the-range model, but it does include a superb screen — and analysts will tell you that's typically one of the most expensive parts of a tablet.
Investors in Apple, Motorola Mobility, Samsung, Hewlett-Packard, Research In Motion and others are hoping for great things from tablet computers. It's all anyone wants to talk about—the huge profits to come from all these tablets and the "cloud computing" services they use. Apple alone is the second-most-valuable company in the world, with an enterprise value of more than $300 billion.
Count me as deeply Missourian about the long-term profits likely to come from this entire industry. In the short run, there may be fantastic money to be made. In the long term, tablets will be a dime a dozen. Every platform will have all the apps you need. Any brand or model is going to have a tough challenge maintaining a competitive advantage over another. Someday we're going to look back and laugh at the day when people thought tablets — or smartphones — were exciting and profitable businesses to be in.
If Barnes & Noble can do it, anyone can."
Move Over, Apple! My Tablet Cost $200
BRETT ARENDS
MARCH 9, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703662804576188901890884360.html
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
10 American Companies That Will Disappear in 2011
Here's a list from DailyFinance.com:
Saab USA
Saab has tried to create a renaissance of sorts. The company was sold to Netherlands specialty carmaker Spyker last year. Spyker took an awful risk, particularly in the U.S. -- because Saab is one of the few car firms that did recover when the U.S. car market expanded last year. The total number of cars and light vehicles sold in America in 2010 was up 11% to 11.6 million.
Sales of some niche brands surged. Porsche sales in the U.S. were up 29% to over 29,000. Audi sales rose 22% to over 101,000. But Saab sales collapsed -- falling 37% to 5,445. American car companies have also created new lines of vehicles that have begun to sell well, particularly in the middle market where Saab operates. The Japanese still control the lower-price, high-quality portion of the market. And Korea's Hyundai took share from nearly everyone else last year, as its sales rose over 24% to just above 538,000. There's no room in the American market for tiny operator like Saab.
Office Depot
The company is running third in a three-horse race with Office Max and Staples. Office Depot also has to compete with small business centers in Sam's Clubs and Costcos. The firm operates on razor-thin margins, while managing 1,150 locations -- which are very costly due to employee and real estate expenses. Office Depot is a strong candidate to be taken over by one of its rivals or a broader retail chain like Target.
The market is too competitive for Office Depot to stand on its own. A consolidation in the sector would allow a merged operation to cut thousands of people and close hundreds of locations. Operating margins, then, would not be so modest.
Dean Foods
The maker of dairy products like Land O'Lakes and Silk has struggled as much as any other large public company this year. The costs of raw milk, butterfat, soybeans and sugar have risen sharply. Dean Foods has also been crippled by debt. The firm's shares were down as much as 60% at one point during the last 12 months.
Despite all the bad news, hedge fund investor David Tepper bought a 7.35% stake in the company. Dean Foods shares rose 9% after the announcement. Dean has already sold its yogurt business to Schreiber Foods. And Tepper, one of the cleverest investors on Wall Street, has probably bet the balance of Dean Foods will be sold off in parts. Probably the Fresh Dairy Direct-Morningstar and WhiteWave/Alpro business units would draw the most bidders. Watch for Dean to be broken up, to satisfy debtholders and arge investors.
Frontier Airlines
The carrier is owned by Republic Airways Holdings and was bankrupt when Republic bought it in 2009. Republic recently merged another of its holdings, Midwest Air, into Frontier. Denver-based Frontier is simply too small to compete in the domestic carrier market -- which has become increasingly dominated by large airlines that are growing due to mergers.
Wall Street has also become increasingly worried about Republic's future. Its shares are down 13% over the last quarter, while shares in rival JetBlue are up 9% during the same time frame. Frontier's Milwaukee hub, which serves the East and Midwest, and its Denver hub, which serves the West, the South, and Mexico, would be valuable to a larger carrier. Airline mergers and buyouts like the Continental/United deal and Delta's takeover of Northwest are popular in the industry because they allow for personnel reductions and route cuts -- as well as trimming the number of aircraft that have to be maintained. Two airlines together can have a better margin than separately. Frontier is a buyout target; its brand is not.
Sara Lee
The company that makes Ball Park hot dogs and Jimmy Dean breakfast foods is already being circled by corporations in similar businesses and by private equity firms -- groups interested in breaking Sara Lee up. Apollo Global Management has recently considered a bid. JBS, the Brazilian meat processor, made an offer that was turned down.
Media reports say Sara Lee is in the midst of a plan to separate its coffee and meat businesses. If that happens, the new companies may be named Hillshire Farm and Pickwick Tea. A deal to sell off pieces of the firm will probably happen before midyear.
Borders
The large bookstore chain is almost gone already. The only question remaining is whether it will be dissolved or sold to a related retailer like Barnes & Noble. It appears Borders has little choice other than to go bankrupt, given its debt and cash-flow situation. Two ominous signs for the bookseller: It says it's unable to pay some of its largest publishers for their books.
Border's stock also dropped under $1 a share, a warning sign that the shares could eventually be delisted -- that is, if Borders lasts long enough. The company's 500 locations may have value to a buyer, but its name does not, being associated with little more than failure.
Gateway
Gateway was bought by Taiwanese PC giant Acer in 2007. Acer is currently the No. 3 PC company in the world after Dell and Hewlett-Packard. The buyout was not unlike the one that China-based Lenovo made of the IBM PC division. Lenovo found the IBM brand was useful for marketing in the U.S., but dropped the name in favor of its own. Lenovo saw no reason to support two brands any longer and wanted to be recognized by its corporate name in the U.S. market.
Acer, meanwhile, has become an established brand in the U.S. over the last two years, particularly for its netbooks and notebooks -- while the Gateway brand has faded. Gateway is still a stand-alone corporation but will likely disappear this year.
DollarThrifty
Dollar Thrifty has a tentative deal to be bought by Avis Budget -- but the FTC has not given the transaction final approval. If the buyout closes, then the Avis, Budget, Dollar and Thrifty car rental businesses will all be under one roof. Dollar Thrifty has lost any momentum in its efforts to expand. The company said in December that it would add 31 new franchises in the U.S. It has 1,550 locations in 81 countries worldwide.
Ironically, Dollar Thrifty is itself the result of a merger of two companies. Thrifty was owned by Chrysler and combined with Dollar in 1990. Avis should close its takeover by mid-2011
Answers Corp.
The online search firm's stock is down 40% in five years. Google, in comparison was up nearly 40% during that period. The smaller company had third-quarter revenue of only $4.5 million, which means it barely has a reason to be a public company. Operating income for the quarter was only $379,000, and its total average page views daily are about 14 million.
Answers will likely be sold to a company that could use its technology platform and unique visitor traffic. This might include one of the portals or large online content companies like News Corp. The company's market value is only $65 million, which is pocket change for a really large Web company.
E*Trade
There are too many big discount brokers in the U.S. There have been persistent rumors that E*Trade will be bought by one of its larger competitors --Charles Schwab or TDAmeritrade. The rumors even caused a large move in E*Trade's options early last month. Broker Collins Stewart downgraded E*Trade shares recently, pointing to problems with loan portfolio growth on the banking side of the online brokerage's business.
Wall Street's view of the other two discounters is much more positive. The brokerage business has been ideal for consolidation for years. Full-service brokers went through a large number of mergers and acquisitions in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. The reason for the rollups were compelling then as they are now for E*Trade. There are a number of expensive duplicate functions among these companies -- which include marketing costs, trading platforms and administration. Either Schwab or TDAmeritrade will use those economies of scale to buy E*Trade, the weakest member of the sector.
10 American Companies That Will Disappear in 2011
DOUGLAS MCINTYRE
01/18/11
http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/investing/10-american-companies-that-will-disappear-in-2011/19798647
Saab USA
Saab has tried to create a renaissance of sorts. The company was sold to Netherlands specialty carmaker Spyker last year. Spyker took an awful risk, particularly in the U.S. -- because Saab is one of the few car firms that did recover when the U.S. car market expanded last year. The total number of cars and light vehicles sold in America in 2010 was up 11% to 11.6 million.
Sales of some niche brands surged. Porsche sales in the U.S. were up 29% to over 29,000. Audi sales rose 22% to over 101,000. But Saab sales collapsed -- falling 37% to 5,445. American car companies have also created new lines of vehicles that have begun to sell well, particularly in the middle market where Saab operates. The Japanese still control the lower-price, high-quality portion of the market. And Korea's Hyundai took share from nearly everyone else last year, as its sales rose over 24% to just above 538,000. There's no room in the American market for tiny operator like Saab.
Office Depot
The company is running third in a three-horse race with Office Max and Staples. Office Depot also has to compete with small business centers in Sam's Clubs and Costcos. The firm operates on razor-thin margins, while managing 1,150 locations -- which are very costly due to employee and real estate expenses. Office Depot is a strong candidate to be taken over by one of its rivals or a broader retail chain like Target.
The market is too competitive for Office Depot to stand on its own. A consolidation in the sector would allow a merged operation to cut thousands of people and close hundreds of locations. Operating margins, then, would not be so modest.
Dean Foods
The maker of dairy products like Land O'Lakes and Silk has struggled as much as any other large public company this year. The costs of raw milk, butterfat, soybeans and sugar have risen sharply. Dean Foods has also been crippled by debt. The firm's shares were down as much as 60% at one point during the last 12 months.
Despite all the bad news, hedge fund investor David Tepper bought a 7.35% stake in the company. Dean Foods shares rose 9% after the announcement. Dean has already sold its yogurt business to Schreiber Foods. And Tepper, one of the cleverest investors on Wall Street, has probably bet the balance of Dean Foods will be sold off in parts. Probably the Fresh Dairy Direct-Morningstar and WhiteWave/Alpro business units would draw the most bidders. Watch for Dean to be broken up, to satisfy debtholders and arge investors.
Frontier Airlines
The carrier is owned by Republic Airways Holdings and was bankrupt when Republic bought it in 2009. Republic recently merged another of its holdings, Midwest Air, into Frontier. Denver-based Frontier is simply too small to compete in the domestic carrier market -- which has become increasingly dominated by large airlines that are growing due to mergers.
Wall Street has also become increasingly worried about Republic's future. Its shares are down 13% over the last quarter, while shares in rival JetBlue are up 9% during the same time frame. Frontier's Milwaukee hub, which serves the East and Midwest, and its Denver hub, which serves the West, the South, and Mexico, would be valuable to a larger carrier. Airline mergers and buyouts like the Continental/United deal and Delta's takeover of Northwest are popular in the industry because they allow for personnel reductions and route cuts -- as well as trimming the number of aircraft that have to be maintained. Two airlines together can have a better margin than separately. Frontier is a buyout target; its brand is not.
Sara Lee
The company that makes Ball Park hot dogs and Jimmy Dean breakfast foods is already being circled by corporations in similar businesses and by private equity firms -- groups interested in breaking Sara Lee up. Apollo Global Management has recently considered a bid. JBS, the Brazilian meat processor, made an offer that was turned down.
Media reports say Sara Lee is in the midst of a plan to separate its coffee and meat businesses. If that happens, the new companies may be named Hillshire Farm and Pickwick Tea. A deal to sell off pieces of the firm will probably happen before midyear.
Borders
The large bookstore chain is almost gone already. The only question remaining is whether it will be dissolved or sold to a related retailer like Barnes & Noble. It appears Borders has little choice other than to go bankrupt, given its debt and cash-flow situation. Two ominous signs for the bookseller: It says it's unable to pay some of its largest publishers for their books.
Border's stock also dropped under $1 a share, a warning sign that the shares could eventually be delisted -- that is, if Borders lasts long enough. The company's 500 locations may have value to a buyer, but its name does not, being associated with little more than failure.
Gateway
Gateway was bought by Taiwanese PC giant Acer in 2007. Acer is currently the No. 3 PC company in the world after Dell and Hewlett-Packard. The buyout was not unlike the one that China-based Lenovo made of the IBM PC division. Lenovo found the IBM brand was useful for marketing in the U.S., but dropped the name in favor of its own. Lenovo saw no reason to support two brands any longer and wanted to be recognized by its corporate name in the U.S. market.
Acer, meanwhile, has become an established brand in the U.S. over the last two years, particularly for its netbooks and notebooks -- while the Gateway brand has faded. Gateway is still a stand-alone corporation but will likely disappear this year.
DollarThrifty
Dollar Thrifty has a tentative deal to be bought by Avis Budget -- but the FTC has not given the transaction final approval. If the buyout closes, then the Avis, Budget, Dollar and Thrifty car rental businesses will all be under one roof. Dollar Thrifty has lost any momentum in its efforts to expand. The company said in December that it would add 31 new franchises in the U.S. It has 1,550 locations in 81 countries worldwide.
Ironically, Dollar Thrifty is itself the result of a merger of two companies. Thrifty was owned by Chrysler and combined with Dollar in 1990. Avis should close its takeover by mid-2011
Answers Corp.
The online search firm's stock is down 40% in five years. Google, in comparison was up nearly 40% during that period. The smaller company had third-quarter revenue of only $4.5 million, which means it barely has a reason to be a public company. Operating income for the quarter was only $379,000, and its total average page views daily are about 14 million.
Answers will likely be sold to a company that could use its technology platform and unique visitor traffic. This might include one of the portals or large online content companies like News Corp. The company's market value is only $65 million, which is pocket change for a really large Web company.
E*Trade
There are too many big discount brokers in the U.S. There have been persistent rumors that E*Trade will be bought by one of its larger competitors --Charles Schwab or TDAmeritrade. The rumors even caused a large move in E*Trade's options early last month. Broker Collins Stewart downgraded E*Trade shares recently, pointing to problems with loan portfolio growth on the banking side of the online brokerage's business.
Wall Street's view of the other two discounters is much more positive. The brokerage business has been ideal for consolidation for years. Full-service brokers went through a large number of mergers and acquisitions in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. The reason for the rollups were compelling then as they are now for E*Trade. There are a number of expensive duplicate functions among these companies -- which include marketing costs, trading platforms and administration. Either Schwab or TDAmeritrade will use those economies of scale to buy E*Trade, the weakest member of the sector.
10 American Companies That Will Disappear in 2011
DOUGLAS MCINTYRE
01/18/11
http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/investing/10-american-companies-that-will-disappear-in-2011/19798647
Friday, October 29, 2010
Carly Fiorina wrong for HP, wrong for California
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/26/EDFT1G2A5C.DTL
Carly Fiorina wrong for HP, wrong for California
Jason Burnett, Eric Gimon
San Francisco Chronicle
October 26, 2010
In her run for the U.S. Senate, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina is telling California voters she will bring change to Washington. Should she get elected, we believe she will let them down just as she did the employees and shareholders of HP.
As members of the Hewlett and Packard families, we heard Fiorina make this same promise of change when she took over the pioneering Silicon Valley company our grandfathers started in a Palo Alto garage in 1939.
When Fiorina came to Hewlett-Packard in 1999, the company was still hewing closely to the guiding vision that our grandfathers laid out, which put a premium on integrity, respect for employees and a focus on how the company's work would benefit the broader community. It was known simply as the HP Way.
During her brief tenure at HP, Carly Fiorina broke from these core values - and nearly destroyed a great company.
She ruptured the collaborative relationship between employees and management, which for decades had fostered a talented and loyal workforce. In stark contrast to our grandfathers' track record of avoiding layoffs, Fiorina laid off tens of thousands of employees, shipping many of those jobs overseas.
Rather than the team-oriented approach that had characterized HP since its founding, Fiorina instituted a top-down culture. She got herself on the covers of glossy magazines. Most good CEOs put employees, shareholders and customers ahead of themselves. Fiorina appeared to put herself first. While she asked employees to make sacrifices - including giving up their profit-sharing plan - she took more than $100 million in pay and perks.
She pursued a growth-at-all-costs strategy, which culminated in the merger with Compaq that sparked a divisive fight over the legacy of the HP Way.
What were the results? During her time at HP, shareholders were disappointed by the company's poor stock performance. Employee morale plummeted. Independent management experts and multiple publications have dubbed her one of the worst CEOs of all time. Even Wall Street celebrated when Fiorina was fired, sending HP's stock up. What does it say that HP was worth billions of dollars more with Fiorina gone?
While Fiorina's values were wrong for HP, we believe they would be devastating for California and the nation. On the paramount issue of jobs, she has opposed major jobs bills over the last two years, including efforts to help small businesses.
Fiorina has said she's running on her record at HP. We urge California voters to take a closer look.
She was the wrong choice for HP. She is the wrong choice for the U.S. Senate.
Jason Burnett, founder of Burnett EcoEnergy in Carmel, is the grandson of David Packard. Eric Gimon, a physicist living in Berkeley, is the grandson of Bill Hewlett.
This article appeared on page A - 14 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Carly Fiorina wrong for HP, wrong for California
Jason Burnett, Eric Gimon
San Francisco Chronicle
October 26, 2010
In her run for the U.S. Senate, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina is telling California voters she will bring change to Washington. Should she get elected, we believe she will let them down just as she did the employees and shareholders of HP.
As members of the Hewlett and Packard families, we heard Fiorina make this same promise of change when she took over the pioneering Silicon Valley company our grandfathers started in a Palo Alto garage in 1939.
When Fiorina came to Hewlett-Packard in 1999, the company was still hewing closely to the guiding vision that our grandfathers laid out, which put a premium on integrity, respect for employees and a focus on how the company's work would benefit the broader community. It was known simply as the HP Way.
During her brief tenure at HP, Carly Fiorina broke from these core values - and nearly destroyed a great company.
She ruptured the collaborative relationship between employees and management, which for decades had fostered a talented and loyal workforce. In stark contrast to our grandfathers' track record of avoiding layoffs, Fiorina laid off tens of thousands of employees, shipping many of those jobs overseas.
Rather than the team-oriented approach that had characterized HP since its founding, Fiorina instituted a top-down culture. She got herself on the covers of glossy magazines. Most good CEOs put employees, shareholders and customers ahead of themselves. Fiorina appeared to put herself first. While she asked employees to make sacrifices - including giving up their profit-sharing plan - she took more than $100 million in pay and perks.
She pursued a growth-at-all-costs strategy, which culminated in the merger with Compaq that sparked a divisive fight over the legacy of the HP Way.
What were the results? During her time at HP, shareholders were disappointed by the company's poor stock performance. Employee morale plummeted. Independent management experts and multiple publications have dubbed her one of the worst CEOs of all time. Even Wall Street celebrated when Fiorina was fired, sending HP's stock up. What does it say that HP was worth billions of dollars more with Fiorina gone?
While Fiorina's values were wrong for HP, we believe they would be devastating for California and the nation. On the paramount issue of jobs, she has opposed major jobs bills over the last two years, including efforts to help small businesses.
Fiorina has said she's running on her record at HP. We urge California voters to take a closer look.
She was the wrong choice for HP. She is the wrong choice for the U.S. Senate.
Jason Burnett, founder of Burnett EcoEnergy in Carmel, is the grandson of David Packard. Eric Gimon, a physicist living in Berkeley, is the grandson of Bill Hewlett.
This article appeared on page A - 14 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, August 16, 2010
Fiorina, Hurd: no practitioners of 'The HP Way'?
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0822209420100808
Fiorina, Hurd: no practitioners of 'The HP Way'?
Sun Aug 8, 2010
* "The HP Way" under siege
* Culture helped shape Silicon Valley
* Deterioration began when outsider Fiorina brought in
Alex Dobuzinskis
LOS ANGELES - Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard would not be amused.
The founders of Hewlett-Packard -- some say Silicon Valley itself -- built their empire on a people-centric management model they christened "The HP Way." But author and veteran tech journalist Michael S. Malone says that mantra has come under siege in past years, culminating in the exit on Friday of CEO Mark Hurd following a sexual harassment inquiry.
Stanford alumni Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard in the 1950s outlined the tenets of a corporation that embraced performance bonuses, employee shares, ground-level decision-making, even tuition aid and allowing workers to leave early to get to Little League games. Business 101 today, novel at the time.
Malone said that long-held philosophy came under siege with the arrival of outsider Carly Fiorina -- who was ousted after a reign marked by the unpopular, costly acquisition of Compaq and a lackluster share price. Fiorina has said however she felt the "HP Way" was an excuse not to innovate, an impediment to change in a rapidly evolving tech corporate landscape.
Then Chairwoman Patricia Dunn quit in 2006 after accusations that HP had hired gumshoes to obtain phone records of board members and journalists.
Now Hurd, who HP said falsified expense reports to conceal his relationship with a contractor, has laid further waste to the "Way," said Malone, author of "Bill & Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the Word's Greatest Company.
HP's investigation did not find any violation of its sexual harassment policy, but did unearth instances where its code of conduct was violated, the company said.
"At its peak, HP had levels of trust inside the organization that had never been seen before in the corporate world and has never been seen since in a company of that size," he told Reuters in an interview on Friday.
"In a sense this was a double betrayal, he betrayed the corporate culture and ultimately he's now betrayed the dreams of all those HPers who were beginning to believe in the company again," said Malone, who worked public relations for HP from 1975 to 1979.
Malone says the basic philosophy came under fire after Fiorina -- the first outsider to take the CEO role -- was hired, and sought to impose a top-down style while rendering herself a lot less accessible than her predecessors.
Fiorina -- now a strong challenger to incumbent Barbara Boxer for a California Senate seat -- counters that too many at HP were resistant to much-needed restructuring.
"Bill and Dave had once been radicals and pioneers. Now, I'd seen too many instances where a new idea was quickly dismissed with the comment: "We don't do it that way. It's not the HP Way." The HP Way was being used as a shield against change," she said on her website, www.carlyfiorina.com.
WAY'S HEYDAY
"The HP Way" had its heyday in the 1960s, and today is credited with helping grow the corporation from a $538 garage outfit in 1939 into the $125 billion behemoth it is today. www.hpalumni.org/hp_way.htm
There was an emphasis on life outside of work: HP bought up land for recreational activities around the world, and pioneered Friday afternoon beers at the office, for instance.
Experts like Malone say that approach became a model adopted by many in Silicon Valley -- including crosstown peers like Apple Inc and Cisco -- and helped differentiate the technology giants on the U.S. West Coast from their more strait-laced brethren back east.
Hurd was never an especially fervent admirer of Bill and Dave's tenets. But he restored the reputation for success that had waned under Fiorina, he said.
He was credited for turning around the company and more than doubling its share price during his tenure. Plying a belief in rigid cost discipline, he drastically shed staff -- something largely avoided before Fiorina.
"Outside of Steve Jobs at Apple, it's hard to imagine a CEO that is more important to his company than Mark Hurd to Hewlett-Packard. He did a massive turnaround job," said Motley Fool analyst Rick Munarriz.
But with Hurd's departure, the company has the chance to re-establish the core of the "Way", said Malone, who credited him however with making important changes.
"What Hurd did was he went in and he didn't exactly embody 'The HP Way', but he understood it enough to get people back working again, and he restored that legacy of continuing success. HP is a world-beater company right now.
"'The HP Way' has been pretty battered, there's not many people left there who really have lived it. But the spirit is embedded in the DNA of the company," Malone said. (Editing by Edwin Chan and Diane Craft)
Fiorina, Hurd: no practitioners of 'The HP Way'?
Sun Aug 8, 2010
* "The HP Way" under siege
* Culture helped shape Silicon Valley
* Deterioration began when outsider Fiorina brought in
Alex Dobuzinskis
LOS ANGELES - Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard would not be amused.
The founders of Hewlett-Packard -- some say Silicon Valley itself -- built their empire on a people-centric management model they christened "The HP Way." But author and veteran tech journalist Michael S. Malone says that mantra has come under siege in past years, culminating in the exit on Friday of CEO Mark Hurd following a sexual harassment inquiry.
Stanford alumni Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard in the 1950s outlined the tenets of a corporation that embraced performance bonuses, employee shares, ground-level decision-making, even tuition aid and allowing workers to leave early to get to Little League games. Business 101 today, novel at the time.
Malone said that long-held philosophy came under siege with the arrival of outsider Carly Fiorina -- who was ousted after a reign marked by the unpopular, costly acquisition of Compaq and a lackluster share price. Fiorina has said however she felt the "HP Way" was an excuse not to innovate, an impediment to change in a rapidly evolving tech corporate landscape.
Then Chairwoman Patricia Dunn quit in 2006 after accusations that HP had hired gumshoes to obtain phone records of board members and journalists.
Now Hurd, who HP said falsified expense reports to conceal his relationship with a contractor, has laid further waste to the "Way," said Malone, author of "Bill & Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the Word's Greatest Company.
HP's investigation did not find any violation of its sexual harassment policy, but did unearth instances where its code of conduct was violated, the company said.
"At its peak, HP had levels of trust inside the organization that had never been seen before in the corporate world and has never been seen since in a company of that size," he told Reuters in an interview on Friday.
"In a sense this was a double betrayal, he betrayed the corporate culture and ultimately he's now betrayed the dreams of all those HPers who were beginning to believe in the company again," said Malone, who worked public relations for HP from 1975 to 1979.
Malone says the basic philosophy came under fire after Fiorina -- the first outsider to take the CEO role -- was hired, and sought to impose a top-down style while rendering herself a lot less accessible than her predecessors.
Fiorina -- now a strong challenger to incumbent Barbara Boxer for a California Senate seat -- counters that too many at HP were resistant to much-needed restructuring.
"Bill and Dave had once been radicals and pioneers. Now, I'd seen too many instances where a new idea was quickly dismissed with the comment: "We don't do it that way. It's not the HP Way." The HP Way was being used as a shield against change," she said on her website, www.carlyfiorina.com.
WAY'S HEYDAY
"The HP Way" had its heyday in the 1960s, and today is credited with helping grow the corporation from a $538 garage outfit in 1939 into the $125 billion behemoth it is today. www.hpalumni.org/hp_way.htm
There was an emphasis on life outside of work: HP bought up land for recreational activities around the world, and pioneered Friday afternoon beers at the office, for instance.
Experts like Malone say that approach became a model adopted by many in Silicon Valley -- including crosstown peers like Apple Inc and Cisco -- and helped differentiate the technology giants on the U.S. West Coast from their more strait-laced brethren back east.
Hurd was never an especially fervent admirer of Bill and Dave's tenets. But he restored the reputation for success that had waned under Fiorina, he said.
He was credited for turning around the company and more than doubling its share price during his tenure. Plying a belief in rigid cost discipline, he drastically shed staff -- something largely avoided before Fiorina.
"Outside of Steve Jobs at Apple, it's hard to imagine a CEO that is more important to his company than Mark Hurd to Hewlett-Packard. He did a massive turnaround job," said Motley Fool analyst Rick Munarriz.
But with Hurd's departure, the company has the chance to re-establish the core of the "Way", said Malone, who credited him however with making important changes.
"What Hurd did was he went in and he didn't exactly embody 'The HP Way', but he understood it enough to get people back working again, and he restored that legacy of continuing success. HP is a world-beater company right now.
"'The HP Way' has been pretty battered, there's not many people left there who really have lived it. But the spirit is embedded in the DNA of the company," Malone said. (Editing by Edwin Chan and Diane Craft)
Monday, April 19, 2010
H.P. Sees a Revolution in Memory Chip
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/science/08chips.html
H.P. Sees a Revolution in Memory Chip
JOHN MARKOFF
April 7, 2010
PALO ALTO, Calif. — Hewlett-Packard scientists on Thursday are to report advances in the design of a new class of diminutive switches capable of replacing transistors as computer chips shrink closer to the atomic scale.
The devices, known as memristors, or memory resistors, were conceived in 1971 by Leon O. Chua, an electrical engineer at the University of California, Berkeley, but they were not put into effect until 2008 at the H.P. lab here.
They are simpler than today’s semiconducting transistors, can store information even in the absence of an electrical current and, according to a report in Nature, can be used for both data processing and storage applications.
The researchers previously reported in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they had devised a new method for storing and retrieving information from a vast three-dimensional array of memristors. The scheme could potentially free designers to stack thousands of switches in a high-rise fashion, permitting a new class of ultradense computing devices even after two-dimensional scaling reaches fundamental limits.
Memristor-based systems also hold out the prospect of fashioning analog computing systems that function more like biological brains, Dr. Chua said.
“Our brains are made of memristors,” he said, referring to the function of biological synapses. “We have the right stuff now to build real brains.”
In an interview at the H.P. research lab, Stan Williams, a company physicist, said that in the two years since announcing working devices, his team had increased their switching speed to match today’s conventional silicon transistors. The researchers had tested them in the laboratory, he added, proving they could reliably make hundreds of thousands of reads and writes.
That is a significant hurdle to overcome, indicating that it is now possible to consider memristor-based chips as an alternative to today’s transistor-based flash computer memories, which are widely used in consumer devices like MP3 players, portable computers and digital cameras.
“Not only do we think that in three years we can be better than the competitors,” Dr. Williams said. “The memristor technology really has the capacity to continue scaling for a very long time, and that’s really a big deal.”
As the semiconductor industry has approached fundamental physical limits in shrinking the size of the devices that represent digital 1’s and 0’s as on and off states, it has touched off an international race to find alternatives.
New generations of semiconductor technology typically advance at three-year intervals, and today the industry can see no further than three and possibly four generations into the future.
The most advanced transistor technology today is based on minimum feature sizes of 30 to 40 nanometers — by contrast a biological virus is typically about 100 nanometers — and Dr. Williams said that H.P. now has working 3-nanometer memristors that can switch on and off in about a nanosecond, or a billionth of a second.
He said the company could have a competitor to flash memory in three years that would have a capacity of 20 gigabytes a square centimeter.
“We believe that that is at least a factor of two better storage than flash memory will be able to have in that time frame,” he said.
The H.P. technology is based on the ability to use an electrical current to move atoms within an ultrathin film of titanium dioxide. After the location of an atom has been shifted, even by as little as a nanometer, the result can be read as a change in the resistance of the material. That change persists even after the current is switched off, making it possible to build an extremely low-power device.
The new material offers an approach that is radically different from a promising type of storage called “phase-change memory” being pursued by I.B.M., Intel and other companies.
In a phase-change memory, heat is used to shift a glassy material from an amorphous to a crystalline state and back. The switching speed of these systems is slower and requires more power, the H.P. scientists say.
A version of this article appeared in print on April 8, 2010, on page B3 of the New York edition.
H.P. Sees a Revolution in Memory Chip
JOHN MARKOFF
April 7, 2010
PALO ALTO, Calif. — Hewlett-Packard scientists on Thursday are to report advances in the design of a new class of diminutive switches capable of replacing transistors as computer chips shrink closer to the atomic scale.
The devices, known as memristors, or memory resistors, were conceived in 1971 by Leon O. Chua, an electrical engineer at the University of California, Berkeley, but they were not put into effect until 2008 at the H.P. lab here.
They are simpler than today’s semiconducting transistors, can store information even in the absence of an electrical current and, according to a report in Nature, can be used for both data processing and storage applications.
The researchers previously reported in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they had devised a new method for storing and retrieving information from a vast three-dimensional array of memristors. The scheme could potentially free designers to stack thousands of switches in a high-rise fashion, permitting a new class of ultradense computing devices even after two-dimensional scaling reaches fundamental limits.
Memristor-based systems also hold out the prospect of fashioning analog computing systems that function more like biological brains, Dr. Chua said.
“Our brains are made of memristors,” he said, referring to the function of biological synapses. “We have the right stuff now to build real brains.”
In an interview at the H.P. research lab, Stan Williams, a company physicist, said that in the two years since announcing working devices, his team had increased their switching speed to match today’s conventional silicon transistors. The researchers had tested them in the laboratory, he added, proving they could reliably make hundreds of thousands of reads and writes.
That is a significant hurdle to overcome, indicating that it is now possible to consider memristor-based chips as an alternative to today’s transistor-based flash computer memories, which are widely used in consumer devices like MP3 players, portable computers and digital cameras.
“Not only do we think that in three years we can be better than the competitors,” Dr. Williams said. “The memristor technology really has the capacity to continue scaling for a very long time, and that’s really a big deal.”
As the semiconductor industry has approached fundamental physical limits in shrinking the size of the devices that represent digital 1’s and 0’s as on and off states, it has touched off an international race to find alternatives.
New generations of semiconductor technology typically advance at three-year intervals, and today the industry can see no further than three and possibly four generations into the future.
The most advanced transistor technology today is based on minimum feature sizes of 30 to 40 nanometers — by contrast a biological virus is typically about 100 nanometers — and Dr. Williams said that H.P. now has working 3-nanometer memristors that can switch on and off in about a nanosecond, or a billionth of a second.
He said the company could have a competitor to flash memory in three years that would have a capacity of 20 gigabytes a square centimeter.
“We believe that that is at least a factor of two better storage than flash memory will be able to have in that time frame,” he said.
The H.P. technology is based on the ability to use an electrical current to move atoms within an ultrathin film of titanium dioxide. After the location of an atom has been shifted, even by as little as a nanometer, the result can be read as a change in the resistance of the material. That change persists even after the current is switched off, making it possible to build an extremely low-power device.
The new material offers an approach that is radically different from a promising type of storage called “phase-change memory” being pursued by I.B.M., Intel and other companies.
In a phase-change memory, heat is used to shift a glassy material from an amorphous to a crystalline state and back. The switching speed of these systems is slower and requires more power, the H.P. scientists say.
A version of this article appeared in print on April 8, 2010, on page B3 of the New York edition.
Friday, January 22, 2010
U.S. computer industry dead in 20 years
http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201003/5115/Acer-founder-U-S-computer-industry-dead-in-20-years
Acer founder: U.S. computer industry dead in 20 years
by Stevie Smith
Jan 20 2010
We here at The Tech Herald dearly love the U.S. computer sector and are loathed to be the harbingers of doom regarding its possible demise at the hands of other, more market-savvy regions of the industry… but that’s exactly what this news story suggests.
Moreover, the Taiwanese founder of computer manufacturing heavyweight Acer Inc., has prophesised that U.S. computer makers could be an extinct breed by 2030 due to their apparent lack of understanding in the hardware marketplace.
“The trend for low-priced computers will last for the coming years,” said Stan Shih, founder of Taipei-based Acer, in a Commercial Times newspaper report covered by AFP.
“But US computer makers just don’t know how to put such products on the market,” he added. “US computer brands may disappear over the next 20 years, just like what happened to US television brands.”
While 20 years is certainly a long time, giving the likes of Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Company (HP), and perhaps even Apple Inc., a sizeable window of opportunity with which to avoid this impending doom, Acer’s own momentum is certainly not to be sniffed at.
Specifically, market figures for 2009 saw Acer topple Texas-based Dell to become the world’s second largest computer vendor behind current frontrunner California-based Hewlett-Packard – a position technology magazine DigiTimes believes will belong to Acer by 2011.
Acer founder: U.S. computer industry dead in 20 years
by Stevie Smith
Jan 20 2010
We here at The Tech Herald dearly love the U.S. computer sector and are loathed to be the harbingers of doom regarding its possible demise at the hands of other, more market-savvy regions of the industry… but that’s exactly what this news story suggests.
Moreover, the Taiwanese founder of computer manufacturing heavyweight Acer Inc., has prophesised that U.S. computer makers could be an extinct breed by 2030 due to their apparent lack of understanding in the hardware marketplace.
“The trend for low-priced computers will last for the coming years,” said Stan Shih, founder of Taipei-based Acer, in a Commercial Times newspaper report covered by AFP.
“But US computer makers just don’t know how to put such products on the market,” he added. “US computer brands may disappear over the next 20 years, just like what happened to US television brands.”
While 20 years is certainly a long time, giving the likes of Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Company (HP), and perhaps even Apple Inc., a sizeable window of opportunity with which to avoid this impending doom, Acer’s own momentum is certainly not to be sniffed at.
Specifically, market figures for 2009 saw Acer topple Texas-based Dell to become the world’s second largest computer vendor behind current frontrunner California-based Hewlett-Packard – a position technology magazine DigiTimes believes will belong to Acer by 2011.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Steve Jobs, tech's last celebrity CEO
http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/19/technology/fortt_tech_ceos.fortune/
Steve Jobs, tech's last celebrity CEO
With the Apple chief's decision to step out of the spotlight at next month's Macworld Expo, an era comes to an end.
By Jon Fortt, writer
December 19, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO (Fortune) -- Where have all the high-flying tech CEOs gone?
This week the tech world lost another headliner when Apple CEO Steve Jobs made it known that he'll no longer deliver his signature keynote speech at next month's Macworld Expo trade show.
Since the announcement comes the same year that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates gave up his traditional keynote at another high-tech extravaganza, the Consumer Electronics Show, it underscores the fact that there aren't many superstars left who can rally big crowds and carry the banner for tech.
It had to happen eventually. The sun is setting on the first generation of rebellious whiz kids who invented the PC, commercialized the Internet and grew their companies into powerhouses.
In bygone days, Gates regularly talked up his plans for world domination. Scott McNealy, the co-founder of Sun Microsystems, led a defiant rebellion against Gates and his Redmond, Wash., juggernaut. Craig Barrett, the outspoken former CEO of Intel, ushered the chipmaker's glorious entrance into the age of mobile and wireless computer.
Today, all three have stepped back from operational roles, and are more likely to champion education policy than to unveil the next must-have gadget or service. Even the sole remaining old-school tech CEO, Oracle's Larry Ellison, is keeping a lower profile these days; he's in the news for his yachts and planes as much as anything else.
Help Wanted: A few geeky CEOs
The rest of today's crop of CEOs is a different breed. As innovators like Intel and Microsoft have grown into corporate giants, they haven't looked for clones of their iconoclastic founders to take over; instead, they've looked to manager/salesmen like Intel's Paul Otellini, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, Hewlett-Packard's Mark Hurd and IBM's Sam Palmisano.
These guys are uber managers, not tech visionaries. They may be business-school rock stars, but engineers don't line up for their autographs.
Given the way companies mature, perhaps it's only natural that the current crop of CEOs looks different from the last. It takes one set of skills to think up a brilliant new idea, motivate starry-eyed recruits and inspire investors. It takes an entirely different set to manage thousands of employees, glad-hand customers and placate Wall Street; and it's rare to find all those skills in one person.
Are there any leaders left with geek cred? Sure - Web 2.0 celebrities like Google's Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin, and Larry Page, and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg have plenty - but none of them could be mistaken for inspirational speakers. Likewise, Adobe's Shantanu Narayen and AMD's Dirk Meyer have impressive engineering chops, but they seem more comfortable in the lab than on the stage.
In the end, the guy best suited to draw a crowd and speak for tech is probably Michael Dell - but Dell Inc. is in such rough shape that he won't have much time for speeches.
Which brings us back to Steve Jobs. So as long as he remains at the helm of Apple and its products stay popular, we're not likely to miss his Macworld keynote too much - when he has something to say, he'll figure out ways to draw a crowd. The question is what happens when His Steveness steps away from the company, or when its products are no longer the toast of the town.
When that happens - and it's a matter of when, not if - we may all get wistful about the good old days of the Macworld keynote, when the techies of the world huddled like kids on Christmas, and expected to be blown away.
Steve Jobs, tech's last celebrity CEO
With the Apple chief's decision to step out of the spotlight at next month's Macworld Expo, an era comes to an end.
By Jon Fortt, writer
December 19, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO (Fortune) -- Where have all the high-flying tech CEOs gone?
This week the tech world lost another headliner when Apple CEO Steve Jobs made it known that he'll no longer deliver his signature keynote speech at next month's Macworld Expo trade show.
Since the announcement comes the same year that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates gave up his traditional keynote at another high-tech extravaganza, the Consumer Electronics Show, it underscores the fact that there aren't many superstars left who can rally big crowds and carry the banner for tech.
It had to happen eventually. The sun is setting on the first generation of rebellious whiz kids who invented the PC, commercialized the Internet and grew their companies into powerhouses.
In bygone days, Gates regularly talked up his plans for world domination. Scott McNealy, the co-founder of Sun Microsystems, led a defiant rebellion against Gates and his Redmond, Wash., juggernaut. Craig Barrett, the outspoken former CEO of Intel, ushered the chipmaker's glorious entrance into the age of mobile and wireless computer.
Today, all three have stepped back from operational roles, and are more likely to champion education policy than to unveil the next must-have gadget or service. Even the sole remaining old-school tech CEO, Oracle's Larry Ellison, is keeping a lower profile these days; he's in the news for his yachts and planes as much as anything else.
Help Wanted: A few geeky CEOs
The rest of today's crop of CEOs is a different breed. As innovators like Intel and Microsoft have grown into corporate giants, they haven't looked for clones of their iconoclastic founders to take over; instead, they've looked to manager/salesmen like Intel's Paul Otellini, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, Hewlett-Packard's Mark Hurd and IBM's Sam Palmisano.
These guys are uber managers, not tech visionaries. They may be business-school rock stars, but engineers don't line up for their autographs.
Given the way companies mature, perhaps it's only natural that the current crop of CEOs looks different from the last. It takes one set of skills to think up a brilliant new idea, motivate starry-eyed recruits and inspire investors. It takes an entirely different set to manage thousands of employees, glad-hand customers and placate Wall Street; and it's rare to find all those skills in one person.
Are there any leaders left with geek cred? Sure - Web 2.0 celebrities like Google's Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin, and Larry Page, and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg have plenty - but none of them could be mistaken for inspirational speakers. Likewise, Adobe's Shantanu Narayen and AMD's Dirk Meyer have impressive engineering chops, but they seem more comfortable in the lab than on the stage.
In the end, the guy best suited to draw a crowd and speak for tech is probably Michael Dell - but Dell Inc. is in such rough shape that he won't have much time for speeches.
Which brings us back to Steve Jobs. So as long as he remains at the helm of Apple and its products stay popular, we're not likely to miss his Macworld keynote too much - when he has something to say, he'll figure out ways to draw a crowd. The question is what happens when His Steveness steps away from the company, or when its products are no longer the toast of the town.
When that happens - and it's a matter of when, not if - we may all get wistful about the good old days of the Macworld keynote, when the techies of the world huddled like kids on Christmas, and expected to be blown away.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
H-P Hones Gadget, Game Wares
http://www.thestreet.com/s/h-p-hones-gadget-game-wares/newsanalysis/techgames/10378216.htmlpuc=googlefi
Technology
H-P Hones Gadget, Game Wares
By Alexei Oreskovic
TheStreet.com Senior Writer
9/6/2007
SAN FRANCISCO -- Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) took the lid off a slew of new products, sharpening its focus on gadgets and games ahead of the all-important holiday shopping season.
The technology company showcased more than 20 new products, including notebook PCs, cell phones and satellite-guided navigation devices, at an event at New York's Fashion Week late Wednesday.
The headliner of the show was without a doubt the so-called Blackbird, a sleek, aluminum desktop PC designed for video gamers. The Blackbird, which features liquid cooling and an LED illuminated back panel, is the first fruit of H-Ps 2006 acquisition of Voodoo PC, a Canadian maker of high-end game PCs.
"Gaming PCs have always been accessible to only a few," Todd Bradley, the head of H-P's PC division in said a statement. "By combining our acquisition a year ago of gaming leader Voodoo with innovations from H-P Labs, we're bringing the gaming experience to the mainstream."
With a price tag ranging from $2,500 to $7,100, the Blackbird will add a nice bump to the top line if H-P can indeed broaden the appeal of a gaming PC beyond the existing base of hard-core gamers.
H-P's game plan is in sharp contrast to that of Dell (DELL) , the world's No. 2 PC maker, which acquired Alienware, another high-end gaming PC maker, in 2006.
Unlike the H-P-Voodoo collaboration that created the Blackbird, Dell has made a point of keeping Alienware a completely separate brand. While Alienware is tied into Dell's supply chain, to ensure component cost benefits, Dell does not advertise Alienware PCs from its Web site.
On the other hand, Dell already has an existing line of Dell-branded gaming PCs known as XPS.
The barrage of new products from H-P comes as the holiday sales season draws near. In a similar vein, Apple (AAPL) on Wednesday refreshed its entire line of iPod MP3 players.
H-P also introduced a new lineup of handheld PCs, smartphones and laptops, each sporting different arrays of networking and communications options such as 3G, Wi-Fi and GPS.
And for the first time, H-P said it will offer business notebooks featuring flash-based hard drives, following a similar move by Dell earlier in the year.
Though hard drives that use flash memory chips are more expensive than the traditional magnetic hard drives, they are smaller, more reliable and consume less power.
Shares of H-P were up 10 cents at $50.20 in midday trading Thursday.
Technology
H-P Hones Gadget, Game Wares
By Alexei Oreskovic
TheStreet.com Senior Writer
9/6/2007
SAN FRANCISCO -- Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) took the lid off a slew of new products, sharpening its focus on gadgets and games ahead of the all-important holiday shopping season.
The technology company showcased more than 20 new products, including notebook PCs, cell phones and satellite-guided navigation devices, at an event at New York's Fashion Week late Wednesday.
The headliner of the show was without a doubt the so-called Blackbird, a sleek, aluminum desktop PC designed for video gamers. The Blackbird, which features liquid cooling and an LED illuminated back panel, is the first fruit of H-Ps 2006 acquisition of Voodoo PC, a Canadian maker of high-end game PCs.
"Gaming PCs have always been accessible to only a few," Todd Bradley, the head of H-P's PC division in said a statement. "By combining our acquisition a year ago of gaming leader Voodoo with innovations from H-P Labs, we're bringing the gaming experience to the mainstream."
With a price tag ranging from $2,500 to $7,100, the Blackbird will add a nice bump to the top line if H-P can indeed broaden the appeal of a gaming PC beyond the existing base of hard-core gamers.
H-P's game plan is in sharp contrast to that of Dell (DELL) , the world's No. 2 PC maker, which acquired Alienware, another high-end gaming PC maker, in 2006.
Unlike the H-P-Voodoo collaboration that created the Blackbird, Dell has made a point of keeping Alienware a completely separate brand. While Alienware is tied into Dell's supply chain, to ensure component cost benefits, Dell does not advertise Alienware PCs from its Web site.
On the other hand, Dell already has an existing line of Dell-branded gaming PCs known as XPS.
The barrage of new products from H-P comes as the holiday sales season draws near. In a similar vein, Apple (AAPL) on Wednesday refreshed its entire line of iPod MP3 players.
H-P also introduced a new lineup of handheld PCs, smartphones and laptops, each sporting different arrays of networking and communications options such as 3G, Wi-Fi and GPS.
And for the first time, H-P said it will offer business notebooks featuring flash-based hard drives, following a similar move by Dell earlier in the year.
Though hard drives that use flash memory chips are more expensive than the traditional magnetic hard drives, they are smaller, more reliable and consume less power.
Shares of H-P were up 10 cents at $50.20 in midday trading Thursday.
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