Hewlett-Packard will NOT "Turnaround", We Hope

Using powerful words to communicate direction is critical for large companies.  If this is true, then why is Hewlett-Packard adhering quarter after quarter to using the word  "turnaround" as a key strategic initiative?

The other day I was listening to an interview on Bloomberg with Gigaom Founder Om Malik.  He quoted a strategist friend as saying "Turnarounds never really turn."  It dawned on me that they don't turn, because that isn't the meaning of the word.   

Turnaround ultimately means reversal.  And worse, synonyms of turnaround include words such as: U-turn, annulment, backpedaling, cancellation, change in direction, doubleback, inversion, repeal, rescinding, retraction, switch, transposition, turnabout, volte-face.

   

This is not semantics!

Read the rest, here. This is Good.

Don't Tell Me The Sky is The Limit, When there Are Footprints on the Moon

July, 1969.

I was seven years old and like the rest of the world, glued to the TV.

Those summer days we watched that huge Saturn V rocket lift off then counted down the days before mankind would finally step onto a alien landscape.

Our tour guide was Walter Cronkite - arguably the last newscaster who understood the story wasn't about him, it was about us.

Neil Armstrong and crew landed on the moon July 25.  A few weeks earlier, June 3 to be exact, the last episode of Star Trek aired on NBC.

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Go Ahead...Pull My MpS Finger...

I gotta plug this - the picture alone is worth it!

Over at the Business Transformation Center, on CRN and sponsored by Xerox, I have a little column going.

"AskGreg" - It's like the old "Dear Abby" columns only not.

Sure, I'll answer Managed print Services questions - I can and HAVE talked MpS in my sleep.

But what I would really like to discuss is how MpS has changed lives.  How mobility print is non-existent or why MpS won't matter in 10 years.

I'd love to answer those burning sales questions like, "Why do my prospects hang up on me?" and "How come my sales manger doesn't know how to sell?" or "Do I really sell solutions on the 1st and boxes on the 25th of the month?"

Oh yes, the fun we could have.

So go here and ask to your heart's content...ask me anything about MpS, technology or remote control nano-bots - if I don't know the answer, I'll make one up.

Cheers!

HP to Report Biggest Loss in it's History...Setting the Stage for the Greatest Show Ever

Huge losses, massive layoffs, transformation on a global scale - and yet is seems more is needed.

How about creating a Mobility Practice and doubling, no tripling, no quadrupling down on a the consumer play and go after the BYOD crowd? With a tablet?  Knowingly competing with the iPad, iPhone, iWhatever?

Goodness.

Not my words, from Venturebeat:

"...It(the Q3 loss) is likely to be the worst loss since HP started in 1939. Chief executive Meg Whitman is still coming up with plans to turn around the company, after a year on the job. One of her initiatives is to cut HP’s staff by as much as 27,000 over a couple of years, recording a charge of $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion.

HP is banking on a revival for its PC business as Microsoft launches its Windows 8 operating system on Oct. 26..."

HP plays to the street, always has. So Meg is rolling a bunch of bad news into one announcement, a cleansing of sorts, the loss from EDS as well as the hit generated by layoffs and early retirement offerings presented for all to see. (Who gets to retire, with full benies nowadays at the age of 47?!!)

I am rooting for Old Blue.  I see a future for HP, there just isn't any printing involved; 3D or otherwise.

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HP Into A Perfect Storm? No. More Like Galactic Meatgrinder

I guess when others say it, it must be true.  I mean, if some guy with a blog and a leopard headband spouts off about "ignore this" and "Hawk" that, he's just a lone voice in the darkness, right?

Sure.

In a recent All Things D article, Arik Hesseldahl reflects upon analyst Chris Whitmore of Deutsche Bank Securities review of sales trends over the last 10 quarters at printer companies including Canon, Epson, Lexmark, Xerox and Hewlett-Packard.

Deutsche Bank calls the combined sales for equipment and supplies down 6 percent year on year.

Huh.


Let me outline a few of the high-points from Arik's retelling of the Deutsche Bank report:

Credit: Deutsche Bank

Supplies and equipment sales are down 6%, year to year

Six percent is significant

Sales of printer paper, A3/A4, fell 6% in the
2nd quarter to levels that are 20 percent below the 2006 peak

Interesting how paper sales peaked a year before the copier/MFP revenue peak of 2007(Lyra).

Read the rest ...

Who Owns MpS Now?

Two years a ago I was ringing the bell, exclaiming '...the OEMs where hi-jacking managed print services..." by angling to define MpS in their own likeness.

You remember, in 2008(ITEX), the second or third generation of MpS was in breach.

Back then, OEM MpS programs defined MpS/OPS as managing their devices, ignoring all others.

Everyone was scrambling to release a program. Xerox had PagePack 1.0, HP had OPS Elite, Kyocera had the "cheapest devices", Konica had OPS, OKI jumped in and Toshiba's MpS was one of the best kept secrets in the industry.

The pendulum swung hard right, all the way up to OEMs = MPS as they dictated their doctrine of either 1:1 refreshes or bundled lease and service.

That didnt work. They couldn't get their heads around the fact that ... the rest of the story...