What’s the deal with HP?
I can’t for the life of me figure out Hewlett-Packard. When you think they make a good move, it doesn’t work. When you think they make a bad move, earnings rise. You read about new marketing focus, bad press follows. You read about board tumult and unrest at the top, earnings kick butt.
This company is an enigma. Never a Carly Fiorina fan, and I actually did call the downturn under part of her watch, I must admit I may not have given her credit she deserved for long-term planning. Today, 70% of HP’s revenue comes from outside the U.S. – the source of a good part of today’s positive earnings report — which I am going to attribute to the Compaq purchase she engineered.
HP is doing well in printers, brilliantly in computers (who knew?) and, I suspect, well in services. It’s going to take a Harvard B School case study for me to figure out this company, but at the moment I’m digging their staying power and blocking and tackling.