According to the site where I usually get my news, there are two articles today … one reporting on HP supposedly spinning off the PC business, and another reporting on Lenovo’s bosses patting themselves on their back for buying IBM’s PC business a few years ago. The interesting thing about these two stories is that HP may be making the same mistake that IBM has previously made.
It may not appear at first glance to be a mistake – IBM and now perhaps HP are ditching a very low margin business because their core area of profitability is in business software and services with much higher margins. But is it a sensible decision ?
One of the advantages of selling pieces of tin that ordinary people have a chance of encountering when they are looking for a new desktop PC or laptop, is that your name is “out there”. Ordinary people will know your name, and know what business you are in – just the kind of publicity that an obscure company selling business software would love – how many people in the street know who Oracle are ? Or Autonomy ?