HP's Slump Indicates The PC Is Becoming Passe

Whitman is an idiot, the decline in PC purchasing has been known about since before the year 2000 and is a result of the changes in consumer habits, demand and as a response to the cost of technology in general. A perfectly usable multi-core PC can cost as little as £200 and at that level, HP has no margins to play with because of their own cost structures. Companies like Dell don't develop new PC's, they are screwdriver shops if that, and in reality, the IT business in general is a collection of screwdriver shops reliant upon the component makers to develop all of the innovative momentum.

A typical example is Seagate and WD, the two major drive makers, they don't invent anything, they rely on their component suppliers to invent everything and then seek ways to convince the end customer that the premium price is for trhe latest technology, most of the time, their cost models are reducing and this is how they are able to increase their revenues and maintain their stock prices on the markets, but in truth, much of the time, the consumer is paying them to save themselves money and deliver some improvements to a product set.

Whitman is still and idiot because she believes we will swallow the bull HP releases in the press, problem, is that not all of us are as stupid as she thinks. The IT business could be selling you products that use half the power, to deliver twice the performance at 60% of the cost, of course, they won't, it is not in their interests to do so.

Maybe companies need to build in a bigger risk factor when they use countries like Thailand etc. Although cheaper these countries do suffer more severe weather issues than other countries that might be slightly more expensive for production but less volatile to weather which can also damage your market share.