What went wrong with HP and where is it headed? – Part 2

What HP committed was a cardinal sin by doing away from R&D and making their way into the hyper-active PC industry. They bought COMPAQ for a whopping $26 Billion. What they should have done is to tow the line of IBM in this regard, make COMPAQ the peripheral for computer manufacturing and continue innovating stuff for the betterment of themselves and other in the market.

Nor did they bring new products in the PC industry. For more than a decade, HP has been making laptops, desktops and PC printers. All of these aforesaid are diminishing as are being replaced by tablets, smartphones and paperless electronic communication.

HP has nothing on its hand at the moment to offer in tablet or smartphone market. They spoiled their chance bringing something new to the market by recently discarding WebOS. The company bought the forerunner of mobile technology, the first PDA manufacturers called Palm for$1 Billion. Though the purchase was a huge but given the opportunities it had, HP simply spilled the beans.

Sure enough, Palm’s re-entry into the market was late but it was not fatal to die. Apple came to the smartphone market in 2007 and look what they have done so far. The word smartphone has an unseen logo of a bitten apple attached to it.

HP release some WebOS-based smartphone and tablets last year but they were big flop owning to the lack of applications and features in the new device. Apple and Google provide far better solutions in the mobile computing market.

The blame mainly goes to the leadership, or the lack of it, thereof. There has been no clear strategy since late 90s that could drive the company to safe heavens at least. HP has been milked for its name and profits it had earned in the previous era. No new strategies, no new planning was brought. Instead, CEOs over the years have exercised the same old 1920s leadership skills to cater to every problem. Doing away with a beleaguering business unit, investing in vendor-oriented businesses, extending supply chains, and most importantly getting rid of R&D in the 2000s.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on May 26 2012. Filed under Business, Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.