[conspire] HP Melt Down

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Ruben Safir (ruben at mrbrklyn.com):

> I don't think that makes much business sense.  Evidently Wall Street
> agrees.

Short term stock fluctuations don't do anything other than support what
the late Louis Rukeyeser said:  'Wall Street has all the emotional
stability of a thirteen-year-old girl.'

Long term, the problem is that HP Personal System Group (PC division) 
had only a 6% operating profit in the quarter most recently reported,
which makes it, relatively speaking, a drag on the rest of the company
compared to parts of the firm pulling in a lot more profit on smaller
capital investment.  So, Apotheker apparently wants to go SAP -- or go
IBM, as it were.

> My gut tell's me something else is wrong aside from the
> change in CEO orientation.  One of two things.  A) HP felt it was
> facing a patent war with Apple, and B) These guys HATE to compete.
> They'd rather surrender whole markets than duke it out.

I think your gut needs to hear about Occam's Razor.  

> eh - I'm pretty frustrated with it all.

Why?  This isn't open source / free software at stake, just some rather
dumb corporation that can't figure out what business it's in.  I've
worked at a few, even.