Can you imagine McDonald’s deciding to change their menu so drastically that they would no longer sell hamburgers? That is the kind of change Hewlett-Packard is contemplating.
It was 1983 and I was working for Dataproducts Corporation. That was one of the largest manufacturers in the world of line printers that used dot matrix technology and printed a complete line of data at one time. There was manufacturing of both the printers and the ribbons that fit them. The company also manufactured ribbons for many other printer manufacturers.
There I was standing on the shipping dock when a quality control person informed me and another employee that Hewlett-Packard was testing a new technology called ink jet printing. No printer ribbon was required. I whistled and said Dataproducts would be dead if it did not develop new technology. I was correct. There is no Dataproducts today.
Very shortly after that discussion I owned an HP DeskJet 500 printer. I still own an HP inkjet printer and an HP computer. HP went on to buy Compaq Computer. Now HP has decided to abandon its biggest unit that builds both computers and printers. Those two product groups have been the heart of the company.
Léo Apotheker became HP’s new chief executive and president this past year. His experience is at SAP. SAP is a software company so it is no surprise that he would direct the company to a software orientation. This is a mistake because the company has a history of hardware development and marketing. The dramatic drop in the company’s stock price tells me that I am not alone in this view.
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