Comments on: Beleaguered Hewlett-Packard to take record quarterly loss of nearly $9B

By: Dave H

Dave H — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 11:47:23 +0000

Considering this is on top of whatever their $1.2bn payout for Palm and their $2.7bn payout for 3Com have cost them this really is not the way to run a business. However, you can’t blame Whitman. Hurd and Apotheker are the people that threw the money around in all directions.

HP needs to learn to focus again or it is history.

By: I love Apple

I love Apple — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 08:53:49 +0000

I can explain why: They lost my company as a customer. Last year and this year we spent 100,000 Euro each for Apple hardware alone after we gladly switched platform. And I know a lot of companies like us.

By: G4Dualie

G4Dualie — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 19:16:52 +0000

Really? You’re gonna make him go through all that bullshit again?

He doesn’t get it, just like Spock. It’s illogical to raise the disparity between the CEO’s performance money and the shitty way the company is performing.

ecrabbs suffers from inverse cognitive dissonance, wherein it makes perfect sense to pay these people astronomical sums of money that results in massive layoffs, but ecrabbs fails to see any connection.

Their kind of belief system supports the notion that the CEO is not a “worker” but a demigod who walks on water, but can’t save my job.

By: G4Dualie

G4Dualie — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 19:12:24 +0000

“But, to discuss it in the context of workers’ pay, as if the two have any correlation is stupid at best.”

Stupid at best. No wiggle room. Just stupid thinking and moronic, huh?

Personally, I think you’ve jumped the shark trying to make your point.

ecrabbs. There’s an ointment for that.

By: groucho

groucho — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 17:27:45 +0000

HP looses – what? – 9 billion – what happens? The share goes down a half percent (and it has some time left of the day to recover or even go to green). Apple announces a result better than its own sensible forecast and still juggernauting – AAPL tanks! Go figure?

By: payshunz

payshunz — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 12:28:48 +0000

Seems to me that CEOs (and their ilk) should be paid their ridiculous amounts of money AFTER they actually earn it (turn their company around, etc); until then, a more reasonable salary should be paid.

By: payshunz

payshunz — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 12:16:23 +0000

It makes a difference to each and every one of those 350,000 employees when their CEOs make excessive amounts of money whilst said employees are slowly but surely driven out of a job!

By: Indiemuppet

Indiemuppet — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 09:33:09 +0000

HP will be just fine:

(I make no apologies for my love of The Onion)

By: spyintheskyuk

spyintheskyuk — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 08:57:03 +0000

Now what PC fanboi clown was it who said earlier this year he couldn’t understand all the fuss over the performance of Apple when HP were looking so strong, going forward.

Yeah right.

By: lisab

lisab — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 05:38:22 +0000

Agree. I have little sympathy for MS, which I feel has been ethics-deficient almost from its inception, but my perception of HP was vastly different. It’s founders seemed driven not just by a love of engineering and technology, but by a values-conscious mindset that produced great products while serving all their stakeholders – shareholders, employees and customers. That’s a tough juggling act, and I guess no company can do it forever.

By: ecrabb

ecrabb — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 04:06:32 +0000

I don’t disagree that in many cases, executive compensation is out of line. But, to discuss it in the context of workers’ pay, as if the two have any correlation is stupid at best. It isn’t an “out of their pocket and into his” thing.

When a company has thousands of workers, it doesn’t matter if the CEO makes $1 million or $10 million! For a company the size of HP or Apple, you could take ALL the CEO’s pay and GIVE it to the rest of the company, and they wouldn’t have enough to buy a nice dinner out with!

HP Has 350,000 employees. What the hell difference does it make whether she makes 60 times what the average employee makes or only 20 times what the average employee makes? I’ll tell you. We’re talking about the difference between $20 per employee or $6 per employee. Ooohhh… I’m sure that extra $1/month is really killing the employees’ morale to pay the CEO!

Like I said, it’s a drop in the bucket! If you want to get upset about it on principle because you’re a share holder, fine. But, it’s moronic to think it has any significant impact on worker pay.

By: NHL

NHL — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 03:42:09 +0000

Weird.
No mention of when HP bought PALM and bet on the absolutely certain future success of Web OS, and its assured decimation of Apple iOS.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/195178/hp_buys_palm_why_its_a_good_deal.html

Remember this one?:
‘…HP exec, Eric Cador, claims his company’s TouchPad will become better than number one: “… in the tablet world we’re going to become better than number one. We call it number one plus.”’

By: marko

marko — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 03:27:15 +0000

This is very sad…

The death of a once powerful icon…

By: KenC

KenC — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 02:00:06 +0000

I don’t know if it’s so simple as saying HP overpaid for EDS. Acquisitions are always done with the hope that 1+1=3, due to synergies. The reality is often 1+1=1.5. Envisioned synergies don’t happen. Key personnel leave. Etc., etc., etc.

By: aka Christian

aka Christian — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 23:16:21 +0000

I disagree. Workers’ wages have risen very little in relation to executives’ in the last several decades yet very few companies grew their value enough to justify the ridiculous salaries. CEO’s sit on each others’ boards and award themselves fat pay and benefits. Don’t try to paint me as a “socialist.” I believe smart CEO’s with good business sense should be compensated well… based on the company’s performance and based on a reasonable ratio of what employees make. See here: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/02/business/la-fi-mo-us-ceo-pay-231-times-more-than-average-workers-20120502

By: Guy Jones

Guy Jones — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 22:13:21 +0000

Jeez, I remember reading about that EDS acquisition. The analyst consensus at the time was that HP had vastly verpaid for EDS. And, now, we see the hard evidence.

By: ecrabb

ecrabb — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 21:58:44 +0000

Her salary is nothing, but her bonuses are supposedly $2-6 million. Unfortunately, the scale of HP’s fiscal situation makes her compensation nearly irrelevant in the grand scheme.

Let’s be generous and say she’ll make $10M… Even if she donated her time and expertise and made nothing, at an average of $80k/employee, her salary would save only about 125 jobs. Out of 27,000.

So, it really doesn’t matter what she makes – in any context, really, unless perhaps you’re a shareholder and you’re not happy with the value.

This is why it’s silly when people wring their hands about executive compensation. When a company is big (as they often are when executives receive large compensation packages), the numbers are so huge, the compensation is a tiny drop in the bucket, and has very little bearing on anything.

By: greggthurman

greggthurman — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 21:56:26 +0000

“Keep in mind that most of this “loss” is a paper loss. The money was spent a long time ago. I’d be more concerned about falling PC sales than this one-quarter blip if I were an investor.”

Hopefully HP didn’t take on debt to make these acquisitions. If they did, then HP is in deep doodoo, because the write down was precipitated by the acquisitions not performing. That means no cash flow coming from them.

By: greggthurman

greggthurman — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 21:53:16 +0000

“Nothing good about 27,000 people losing work. I wonder how much Whitman makes?”

If she can turn HP around and save the other 310,000 jobs, she’s worth twice what they are currently paying her.

By: C++

C++ — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 21:44:53 +0000

Keep in mind that most of this “loss” is a paper loss. The money was spent a long time ago. I’d be more concerned about falling PC sales than this one-quarter blip if I were an investor.

By: iNeuron

iNeuron — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 21:41:21 +0000

The first seven lines of lyrics to The End by the Doors.

$9B and 27K souls. Wonder how many CEO replacements before the end. They are caught in the river Styx rapids now.

By: xil

xil — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 21:39:58 +0000

As long as Apple and some other innovative companies can help offset the loss of HP, Dell, Microsoft, et al, we will be ok but I don’t have a lot of faith in the “other” companies. Things are going to get much worse in the short term as we move to a more urban (mobile) space.

By: Artist

Artist — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 21:20:53 +0000

Nothing good about 27,000 people losing work. I wonder how much Whitman makes?