HP press release follows, verbatim:
HP today commented on the recent announcement by Autonomy Corporation plc (LSE: AU.L). HP confirms that it is in discussions with Autonomy regarding a possible offer for the company.
HP also reported that it plans to announce that its board of directors has authorized the exploration of strategic alternatives for its Personal Systems Group (PSG). HP will consider a broad range of options that may include, among others, a full or partial separation of PSG from HP through a spin-off or other transaction.
In addition, HP reported that it plans to announce that it will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.
HP today announced preliminary results for the third fiscal quarter 2011, with revenue of $31.2 billion compared with $30.7 billion one year ago.
In the third quarter, preliminary GAAP diluted earnings per share (EPS) was $0.93 and non-GAAP diluted EPS was $1.10, compared with third quarter fiscal 2010 GAAP diluted EPS of $0.75 and non-GAAP diluted EPS of $1.08. Non-GAAP diluted EPS estimates exclude after-tax costs related primarily to the amortization of purchased intangible assets of approximately $0.17 per share and $0.33 per share in the third quarter of fiscal 2011 and fiscal 2010, respectively.
For the fourth fiscal quarter of 2011, HP estimates revenue of approximately $32.1 billion to $32.5 billion, GAAP diluted EPS in the range of $0.44 to $0.55, and non-GAAP diluted EPS in the range of $1.12 to $1.16. Non-GAAP diluted EPS guidance excludes after-tax costs of approximately $0.61 to $0.68 per share, related primarily to restructuring and shutdown costs associated with webOS devices, the amortization and impairment of purchased intangibles, restructuring charges and acquisition-related charges.
HP estimates full-year FY11 revenue will be approximately $127.2 billion to $127.6 billion, down from its previous estimate of $129 billion to $130 billion. FY11 GAAP diluted EPS is expected to be in the range of $3.59 to $3.70, down from its previous estimate of at least $4.27, and FY11 non-GAAP diluted EPS is expected to be in the range of $4.82 to $4.86, down from its previous estimate of at least $5.00. FY11 non-GAAP diluted EPS estimates exclude after-tax costs of approximately $1.16 to 1.23 per share, related primarily to restructuring and shutdown costs associated with webOS devices, the amortization and impairment of purchased intangibles, restructuring charges and acquisition-related charges.
HP will host a conference call with the financial community today at 2 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. ET to discuss these announcements well as HP’s third quarter 2011 financial results. The call is accessible via an audio webcast at www.hp.com/investor/2011q3webcast.
Source: HP
MacDailyNews Take: Splat! And, just like that, Ruby’s folly comes to an end. Buh-bye, webOS.
And, yup, we told you so, years ago:
“In our opinion, there isn’t room, nor is there a need for Palm in a market already crammed full of iPhone wannabes, to say nothing of the iPhone itself. There are more than enough pretend iPhones, thanks. Plus, developers have far too much on their plates already (iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Symbian, etc.).” MacDailyNews Take, January 9, 2009
Bloodbath.
Related articles:
Unhappy Best Buy wants HP to take back non-selling TouchPads – August 17, 2011
As Apple iPads sell like hotcakes, mountains of unsold tablets pile up in channel – August 15, 2011
People don’t want fake iPads, they want real Apple iPads; HP slashes TouchPad dud by 20% – August 12, 2011
HP TouchPad hits Australia with a resounding ‘meh’ – July 27, 2011
HP bumps Rubinstein from webOS lead after TouchPad launch failure – July 11, 2011
Rubinstein addresses poor HP TouchPad reviews, compares webOS to Apple’s early Mac OS X – July 5, 2011
HP fiddles while Apple innovates – July 10, 2011
Rubinstein addresses poor HP TouchPad reviews, compares webOS to Apple’s early Mac OS X – July 5, 2011
HP TouchPad simply cannot compete with Apple’s iPad 2 – July 5, 2011
Pogue reviews HP TouchPad: ‘Doesn’t come close’ to Apple’s iPad – June 30, 2011
Mossberg: HP TouchPad ‘simply no match’ for Apple iPad 2 – June 30, 2011
I wrote before that so many tech pundits (on other sites) saying that WebOS would be great for HP didn’t factor in company politics or human nature.
No way the Lords of HP who have been around for years will let Rubinstein the ‘guy from Apple’ walk in, succeed and possibly climb over them in company hierarchy. Only a person like Jobs can cut through the crap (pushing iOS to become bigger than Mac, iPod etc). Apoetheker is new, unsure of himself, inherited Palm from Hurd (whom he probably would like to discredit) and has no hardware experience.
same thing is happening with Msft with the Lords of Desktop Windows and Office (who make most of the money for Msft) . sidelining WinCE, WinMo, Zune, WP7 to put DESKTOP Win 8 on tablets stupid as it is. (they will never let the Win Mobile guys climb over them).
Google will be saying the same thing about Moto Mob in 2 years time
This is why Apple will never buy a large company like Adobe. It’s far to expensive to risk buying another company, only to open the package and find it’s rotten at the core. No matter how much due diligence you do, until you own the business you NEVER know what is really going on.
Think HP’s Palm mistake was expensive? Just wait until Google flushes Motorola Mobility down the drain in a year or two.
CEO for HP says in conference call confining the end of the Touchpad: “There’s a clear secular movement in the consumer PC space.” Does anyone know WTF that means?
Means the rubes ain’t got that reeligion no m’o.
The market has been commoditized. There’s no loyalty to brand anymore. Of course, he’s referring to the Windows PC market.
So he’s equating Apple with religion?
NO WINTEL = RELIGION. Anything else is secular, i.e. outside the church.
Kudos to the new HP CEO for having the guts to cut their losses on hopeless endeavors. webOS devices were dead in the water with no future, while HP personal computers make no profit but the division eats up a lot of management’s time. Now, HP management still have to figure out where they can actually make money (beyond printers and enterprise servers), but this is a good start!
Only surprised by how quickly HP decided to throw in the towel. I think most of us knew that it was just a matter of time. It was all too little too late. In a way, HP may be making the wise decision to cut their losses early instead of throwing billions of more into a project that’s doomed to fail. Why try to swim up against the rapids that is the iOS and Android?
Seems HP wants to just focus on the enterprise like IBM and get the hell out of the consumer market where they have no hope of mounting a serious challenge to the likes of Apple, Samsung, Sony, etc. HP has become a lumbering giant that just can’t move nimbly in any direction. HP needs to shed a lot of businesses and focus on markets where they can move quickly and decisively.
This really is a creepy announcement, considering the hype HP received this past week from TechTard stock analysts, HP’s corresponding jump in stock price and their topping Gartner’s latest computer sales list. Oops.
What will Ballmer get to hold at next year’s Consumer Electronics show?
His left nut?
ROFLMAO!!!
Cmon you WebPOS fanboys. Cmon out and say your peace. lol
Oh well. Hey! When does the new iPhone come out? (he he)
This is HP prepping for an Apple buyout. They are taking all there competive hardware & software off the market. They are spinning of all the hardwate parts Apple want need like portables and tablets. Then Apple well come in and buy out all there real estate and office space and hire many already local qualified employees back to run Apples corporate business. They wil then incorporate palm patents & web os into future Apple products.
As I attempted to post 6 times today at MDN, (thanks for the censorship or whatever):
After the lawsuits are over, in 2012 Apple is going to be HANDED Samsung on a platter.
Sorry HP, but Apple only wants your real estate. There’s nothing they can use from your lousy business units.
Oh, and that settles it: My next inkjet printer will be a Canon. 😛
REAL ESTATE
Stories like this underscore the pathetic lack of good leadership (and plain old common sense) in many of today’s biggest high-tech firms. They slavishly copy the iPhone and iPad because they think they must, without any realistic sense of their inability to compete with Apple’s game-changing innovations. It’s sad, kinda like Steve “Bobo” Balmer suiting up for a 49er’s game and expecting to replace Joe Montana at quarterback.
Where are the actual LEADERS these days? They aren’t in government! There are damned few in business. What we’ve got instead are a lot of attention whores with barely a working neuron in their head.
Did modern BizNizz schools churn out these meat heads? Or did all the intelligent people already leave the planet? It’s time I bought my ticket out of here, frickin’ loony bin. 😕
“Bloodbath.” 😈
GROSS!
This is the sickest mess yet!
I’m not cleaning it up.
It’s actually rather sad as well. WebOS gets the boot once again, despite the fact that it has a lot more potential and originality than that rip-off POS called ‘Android’. A very gruesome day indeed.
HP: Remember that blood dissolves in COLD WATER. It’s that stuff that was splashed in your face when you realized your phony phones and pads were FAILures. 😆
So buy a TV at Best Buy for $1500 or more and get a free HP TouchPad…
Still want to have an orphan?
Can you imagine how Apple will behave, once all the competition is killed off? Even for fanbois, that’s a sobering thought.
It’s only sobering for a melted choclate dufus.
We will be fine! There will always be Apple wannabees around.
Innovation and product advancement and improvement, are part of Apple’s DNA.
But you should hop over and get a touchpad. It will be perfect for you!
I totally agree @MM. I’ve seen it happen before with other companies. It’s disastrous. So where is the competition already?! Apple REQUIRE competition!
I think Apple should buy over their PC business. They’re the biggest PC manufacturers in the world if I’m not mistaken, and if Apple buys that part of their business, it would be in control of one of the the Mac’s historical competitors. They could shut it down, or continue to rake in the cash from the world’s (cheapskate) PC addicts. And Gates and Balmer would also probably then switch over to the Mac in a hurry to keep THEIR nest egg going (Microsoft).
you’re an idiot.
+1
Oops, we goofed, back to the drawing board …..
Have to give those guys credit, they cut their losses ……
Gotta love the revenue growth, zero to none as the year over year after adjusted for inflation, what do you have ….. Zero to none!
Un-fscking-believable.
More than tablets.
They also cannot compete with modern computers.
HP PC bites the dust.
Dell next. Then Microsoft.
Apple used to be the most expensive (Wives Tail).
Now they are the least expensive. The computer builders simply cannot build clones of Apple at a cheaper cost.
It is all Technology
Apple first bought LCD technology eight years ago.
Since then they have invested in:
1) Super strength aluminum metals.
2) One piece aluminum milling machines.
3) Form fitting layered batteries.
4) Low power multi-thread processor chips.
5) Hardware and software optimized architectures.
Whether iPads or computers the costs for the same features cannot be beat even with zero margins by the rush to the bottom competitors.
Plug and play parts in plastic ugly containers simply will not sell.
Microsoft will be next.
Microsoft is stopping support for Windows XP so that corporations (50 percent of who still use the old computers) will be forced to buy new computers.
Sorry, at least half of them will buy the new better and lower cost Apple computers.
All the creative companies already do.
Just Saying
where does it say they are getting out of hardware?
They have a strong enterprise product offering and make great servers.
Anybody got a good Compaqtor?
Sorry, but I think this news sucks. WebOS is actually a more worthy competitor for iOS than Android.
Can we stop saying “More Blood” when referring to companies that came out with a product after Apple did. It is not Apple’s fault if someone else did not think of it first and build it first. The only blood shed should the the CEO’s of other companies for not advancing technology on their own and making great products. Why are they not coming out with the next wow factor? Oh… they can’t, but we the blame is place on Apple??? Something is wrong with whomever writes these articles and they should apologize to Apple and all readers for bashing and not being open minded. looks like we need a new news writer… This should shed some blood too!
Uhh, no…
You’re new here, aren’t you? Have problems grasping satire? Any idea what SIDAGTMBTTS means? OK, well, keep trying.
So you DO know how to type in more than “+1”. Good on you. At this rate you should be ready for Grade 1 soon.
Idiot.
Anyone watching the TouchPad displays at Staples saw this coming.
I had reason to visit multiple times over the last week or so.
The TouchPad was prominent right in front of the cash registers and I NEVER saw a single person (other than myself) ever stop in front of the display, let alone try to use the TouchPad.
That told me everything I needed to know.
Wow, Folio MKII. Who’s going to buy a Touch Pad now as they’re end of life.
What surprises me is that HP givesvthe impression that it will shut down Web OS completely. It isn’t clear if they would try to sell it or just mothball it.
Given the appearance of Googlrola, and the presumed interest of the other Android manufacturers in finding a different web OS, I would think that HP could license web OS to them.
In the alternative Samsung, Microsoft and Rim would seem to be likely potential buyers.
Mr. Dell must be shit-ing in this pant when he heard the HP news. Don’t worry Mickey Boy, Dell will be next!! 🙂