Hewlett-Packard to make more TouchPads
Adding insult to an injurious two weeks at Hewlett-Packard, the world’s largest computer maker has discovered that the discontinued TouchPad is a hit, at least at going-out-of-business-sale prices, and has pledged to manufacture some more. Read more
Reverberations from HP’s announcement that it intends to shed its PC business, the world’s biggest by volume, is being felt far and wide across the global IT industry. While no clear buyer has yet emerged, executives in the PC supply chain, analysts and even government officials are all trying to make sense of its impact.
Nowhere is this search for answers more urgent than in Taiwan, where much of the world’s PC supply chain resides. HP’s computers are assembled by Hon Hai, Quanta, Inventec and Wistron, all Taiwanese companies. Read more
A decade on, HP backtracks on PCs [Updated]
Nearly ten years to the day since it doubled down on the PC business with the purchase of Compaq, Hewlett-Packard has decided that its shareholders have been through enough. As we and others are reporting, new CEO Leo Apotheker is ready to change course with a PC spin-off and giant software deal that will radically reshape the tech conglomerate. Read more
A tablet that is ready to take
HP’s new TouchPad tablet, which goes on sale today, stands out as a product that has been well thought out and only brought to market on reaching a degree of maturity. Sure, it suffers from the same lack-of-apps Achilles heel as Apple’s other rivals but it sits alongside the Galaxy Tab 10.1 as the most serious, direct contender to the iPad 2’s throne. Read more
When the media were first shown the HP TouchPad in February, we were not allowed to touch it, ironically.
Well, from hands off to hands on. The long awaited tablet goes on sale on Friday in the US, France and Germany and I have been trying it out for the past week. Some video first impressions after the jump, ahead of a review in this Friday’s Personal Technology column. Read more
HP TouchPad fingers-on video review
When the media were first shown the HP TouchPad in February, we were not allowed to touch it, ironically.
Well, from hands off to hands on, the long awaited tablet goes on sale on Friday in the US, France and Germany and I have been trying it out for the past week. Some video first impressions after the jump, ahead of a review in this Friday’s Personal Technology column. Read more
Lenovo’s complete package
At work, I have substituted the box under my desk, the one I keep accidentally kicking, with a Lenovo ThinkCentre Edge 91z all-in-one PC that sits on the desk in front of me. It has just one cable – for power. The PC‘s innards have been incorporated into the rear of the monitor, so no monitor cable is needed; the keyboard and mouse are connected by wireless and the built-in WiFi means no ethernet networking cable is needed. The iMac has the same capabilities, making these two devices the Mac and PC state-of-the-art approaches to compact desktop computing. Read more
Workhorse laptops pick up the pace
The trend of employees wanting to bring their better-looking and feature-rich consumer devices into the workplace has provoked a reaction from those supplying the safe but staid business laptops we know and suffer. Faced with competition from tablets and ultra-slim notebooks, such as the iPad 2, MacBook Air, Samsung Series 9 and Sony Vaio Z, HP, Lenovo and Toshiba have produced ultraportable notebooks with extra style and consumer features – the subject of this week’s Personal Technology column in the FT’s Business Life section. Read more
The mystery surrounding HP’s services business
Leo Apotheker has just added a valuable new euphemism to the business lexicon. In striving to maintain the profit margin in its services division, he said, HP had “over-executed operationally.” That’s a justification other CEOs will no doubt rush to take up to explain away their companies’ over-zealous, but misguided, efforts.
But if HP is executing so well on its current business and failing to invest in the future, as Mr Apotheker suggested, then why is the lower margin now projected for the division closely tied to existing contracts? Read more
Facebook unveiled the design of its custom-built data centre and servers on Thursday, and promised to share the blueprints with the world, hoping its energy-efficient design would be copied by many others.
Innovations like a cooling system that uses no air conditioning and simplified servers have increased Facebook’s energy efficiency by 38 per cent, compared to conventional leased servers, and decreased costs by 24 per cent. Read more
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
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