HP has a history of ruining brands. Voodoo PC used to mean something. HP bought it and it is gone. It makes no sense because the Envy products are nothing close to Voodoo class products. HP's leadership is inept and foolish.
I'd like to say their laser printers are good and they have yet to screw that up. My only gripe about their inkjets are that they cannot print with black only. It irks me to no end that I need cyan, magenta, and yellow in order to print black & white.
i dont think that way. a lot of companies have sold their unlucrative assets to chinese companies. manufacturing and production isnt the business for the future. knowledge and maybe knowledge sold with hardware might do it. apotheker was right in seeing this way, but maybe very wrong how he turned hp torward it. at the moment they have some interesting products and a sorted linup but the competition is strong. will take its time till hp comes out there oracle, ibm and all the other knowldge and solution players turned to. in a couple of years private or client business hardware might remain for reputation, but certainly wont be the focus of the company imho.
Even their laserjets are slipping, though. I've got several 4200s at work that are practically bomb-proof. Meanwhile, I'm dispatching techs right and left for M525s that are less than two years old that are falling apart.
Every HP printer we've had at work including our DesignJet 510 has gone wrong after 12-18 months or sounds like it's going to go wrong very shortly. HP printers are great to begin with and the firmware UI is second to none, but the long term quality just isn't there.
We just had a repair guy in to work on our old HP Laserjet that had its first minor issue at 500,000 pages printed. He advised us not to replace the printer because HP printer quality is not what it once was.
Did they take the option to print with black ink only out? My (4-year-old) HP inkjet still supports it (it's in the settings for Grayscale), though I've not tried actually removing the color cartridges to see if the printer still works or not.
Yep... they also ruined the Compaq brand and completed the destruction of DEC brand and related products... though the destruction if these brands started prior to Compaq being bought by HP.
Prior to buying Compaq, HP wasn't too bad. When HP bought Compaq, it also gained Compaq's poor-management illness.
I don't know why companies feel they have to branch into everything. Why not just be the best at one thing and enjoy that reputation? Instead they have to get into all sorts of different markets that they previously had little experience with and they end up masters of none and mediocre. Seen it with so many companies, the brands that endure are the ones that are the best at what they do in a small field.
Because as a company you can't predict the future and the thing you do best can become irrelevant over night. If you're not trying new stuff you risk being caught pants down. Corporations are not really good at pivoting quickly when something disturbs the market so there needs to be diversity, new verticals built that ideally support the core business.
Ah yes, the Kodak formula. Become the best at one thing and live off your mastery of that. Until some new technology comes about that makes your cash cow obsolete.
HP is doing the right thing by trying to diversify. The problem is their management has somehow got in their heads that "diversify" means buy something and try to hammer out all the parts which stick out until it fits into your existing corporate structure.
The old HP was the opposite - let their researchers and engineers do crazy stuff to come up with the occasional great idea. e.g. The inkjet printer was invented when some guys were playing around in the lab with moving tiny bubbles of liquid with static electricity.
Bought an hp envy 14 back in 2011. At the time, most of my friends either bought HP, Dell, or Apple laptops. Fast forward to now and that laptop is near unusable because the TIM they used dried up a year and a half ago. All my friends' dell and apple laptops are still humming along nicely. My situation isn't unique either; many other people I've talked to who bought HP laptops along that time period have the same issue.
Crazy, how cheap companies are. Saving a few cents to cost you hundreds of bucks, and inconveniencing you, and contributing to global warming, due to having to throw out the whole laptop. :)
In the short term, using a cheaper part that saves say $1.00 per unit. Multiply that by a million units and that is a $1M extra revenue. However, in the long term, the lower quality can alienate your consumer and drive them to a competitor who has superior durability. We actually learned in engineering class that once upon a time things were engineered with the concept of lasting as long as possible (with things like high fatigue limit in mind). Now it is taught: just build things to last as long as warranty, and no more, with the expectation the consumer will have to buy another product within the designed life.
In the end, it all boils down to companies like HP who are engineering things to work *just* long enough until the product is out of warranty. It is all very short term profit driven, and in the long run will cause major problems in their revenue streams, assuming there is a competitor in their market with a superior product. Nonetheless, it is all quite frustrating for the consumer though.
Considering that few if any people under the age of 30 even remember what a PalmPilot was, I have to question anyone who thought there was value in buying this brand name...
That said, RIP Palm. In their time they were great little devices and I owned a couple myself.
Quietly amazing and excellent information on your article about HP sells palm brand to Alcatel OneTouch. All the information are usable and interesting to read. Thank you for taking the time to share with us. https://www.hptechnicalsupportphonenumbersusa.com/...
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Samus - Wednesday, December 31, 2014 - link
It is unforgivable what HP and Apotheker did to Palm. May they burn in hell.jt122333221 - Wednesday, December 31, 2014 - link
And WebOS - both were great before they destroyed them.jameskatt - Wednesday, December 31, 2014 - link
This is what happens when you have idiots running a company.BMNify - Wednesday, December 31, 2014 - link
WebOS is already sold to LG, the only thing left was Palm brand and now even that is sold by HP for few millions.eanazag - Thursday, January 1, 2015 - link
HP has a history of ruining brands. Voodoo PC used to mean something. HP bought it and it is gone. It makes no sense because the Envy products are nothing close to Voodoo class products. HP's leadership is inept and foolish.I'd like to say their laser printers are good and they have yet to screw that up. My only gripe about their inkjets are that they cannot print with black only. It irks me to no end that I need cyan, magenta, and yellow in order to print black & white.
stefstef - Thursday, January 1, 2015 - link
i dont think that way. a lot of companies have sold their unlucrative assets to chinese companies. manufacturing and production isnt the business for the future. knowledge and maybe knowledge sold with hardware might do it. apotheker was right in seeing this way, but maybe very wrong how he turned hp torward it. at the moment they have some interesting products and a sorted linup but the competition is strong. will take its time till hp comes out there oracle, ibm and all the other knowldge and solution players turned to. in a couple of years private or client business hardware might remain for reputation, but certainly wont be the focus of the company imho.fluxtatic - Thursday, January 1, 2015 - link
Even their laserjets are slipping, though. I've got several 4200s at work that are practically bomb-proof. Meanwhile, I'm dispatching techs right and left for M525s that are less than two years old that are falling apart.Coup27 - Thursday, January 1, 2015 - link
Every HP printer we've had at work including our DesignJet 510 has gone wrong after 12-18 months or sounds like it's going to go wrong very shortly. HP printers are great to begin with and the firmware UI is second to none, but the long term quality just isn't there.JeffFlanagan - Friday, January 2, 2015 - link
We just had a repair guy in to work on our old HP Laserjet that had its first minor issue at 500,000 pages printed. He advised us not to replace the printer because HP printer quality is not what it once was.londedoganet - Thursday, January 1, 2015 - link
Did they take the option to print with black ink only out? My (4-year-old) HP inkjet still supports it (it's in the settings for Grayscale), though I've not tried actually removing the color cartridges to see if the printer still works or not.petersterncan - Sunday, February 1, 2015 - link
Yep... they also ruined the Compaq brand and completed the destruction of DEC brand and related products... though the destruction if these brands started prior to Compaq being bought by HP.Prior to buying Compaq, HP wasn't too bad. When HP bought Compaq, it also gained Compaq's poor-management illness.
jabber - Thursday, January 1, 2015 - link
I don't know why companies feel they have to branch into everything. Why not just be the best at one thing and enjoy that reputation? Instead they have to get into all sorts of different markets that they previously had little experience with and they end up masters of none and mediocre. Seen it with so many companies, the brands that endure are the ones that are the best at what they do in a small field.telurian - Thursday, January 1, 2015 - link
Because as a company you can't predict the future and the thing you do best can become irrelevant over night. If you're not trying new stuff you risk being caught pants down. Corporations are not really good at pivoting quickly when something disturbs the market so there needs to be diversity, new verticals built that ideally support the core business.Solandri - Thursday, January 1, 2015 - link
Ah yes, the Kodak formula. Become the best at one thing and live off your mastery of that. Until some new technology comes about that makes your cash cow obsolete.HP is doing the right thing by trying to diversify. The problem is their management has somehow got in their heads that "diversify" means buy something and try to hammer out all the parts which stick out until it fits into your existing corporate structure.
The old HP was the opposite - let their researchers and engineers do crazy stuff to come up with the occasional great idea. e.g. The inkjet printer was invented when some guys were playing around in the lab with moving tiny bubbles of liquid with static electricity.
az060693 - Thursday, January 1, 2015 - link
Bought an hp envy 14 back in 2011. At the time, most of my friends either bought HP, Dell, or Apple laptops. Fast forward to now and that laptop is near unusable because the TIM they used dried up a year and a half ago. All my friends' dell and apple laptops are still humming along nicely. My situation isn't unique either; many other people I've talked to who bought HP laptops along that time period have the same issue.az060693 - Thursday, January 1, 2015 - link
*aroundyelped - Thursday, January 1, 2015 - link
Crazy, how cheap companies are. Saving a few cents to cost you hundreds of bucks, and inconveniencing you, and contributing to global warming, due to having to throw out the whole laptop. :)ArcticFury - Friday, January 2, 2015 - link
In the short term, using a cheaper part that saves say $1.00 per unit. Multiply that by a million units and that is a $1M extra revenue. However, in the long term, the lower quality can alienate your consumer and drive them to a competitor who has superior durability. We actually learned in engineering class that once upon a time things were engineered with the concept of lasting as long as possible (with things like high fatigue limit in mind). Now it is taught: just build things to last as long as warranty, and no more, with the expectation the consumer will have to buy another product within the designed life.In the end, it all boils down to companies like HP who are engineering things to work *just* long enough until the product is out of warranty. It is all very short term profit driven, and in the long run will cause major problems in their revenue streams, assuming there is a competitor in their market with a superior product. Nonetheless, it is all quite frustrating for the consumer though.
Pessimism - Friday, January 2, 2015 - link
Considering that few if any people under the age of 30 even remember what a PalmPilot was, I have to question anyone who thought there was value in buying this brand name...That said, RIP Palm. In their time they were great little devices and I owned a couple myself.
TelstarTOS - Friday, January 2, 2015 - link
Palm was already dead.hpprintertech - Monday, August 20, 2018 - link
Quietly amazing and excellent information on your article about HP sells palm brand to Alcatel OneTouch. All the information are usable and interesting to read. Thank you for taking the time to share with us. https://www.hptechnicalsupportphonenumbersusa.com/...