O'Grady's PowerPage

Tag: Hewlett-Packard

  • HP to end webOS development, spin off computer business and focus on software/services

    Even the mightiest can fall.

    Or be forced to radically restructure.

    According to Bloomberg, Hewlett Packard, the world’s largest PC maker, has announced plans to spin off its PC business and scrap its recently acquired webOS smartphone and TouchPad tablet business to focus on software and services.

    Per the report, HP “has been aiming to lessen its dependence on lower-margin PCs, where growth has stalled as consumers flock to tablet-style computers like those made by Apple.”

    Recent reports have documented HP’s slide, along with most other top PC makers, in shipments of new computers as Apple continues to grow its sales of Macs and particularly iPads.

    Apple was the only maker in the top 5 PC vendors of Western Europe to experience growth in computer shipments, and the company just surpassed HP in mobile PC sales, largely due to booming sales of iPads.

    HP has been unable to gain traction for its own iPad alternative, despite a campaign launched last year to buy Palm for US$1.2 billion and use its webOS to power a new generation of mobile devices.

    HP is scheduled to announce quarterly earnings after the market closes today, and is expected to detail its US$10 billion plan to acquire Autonomy Corporation, the second largest UK software maker, headquartered in Cambridge, as it spins off its PC hardware unit.

    Autonomy develops enterprise search and data processing technologies that look for meaning in text, voice and video data, whether in a database, files or streams. Much of its technology has origins in research conducted at the University of Cambridge.

    Following a series of mergers and acquisitions, HP represents a combination of Apollo, DEC, Compaq, 3Com and Palm, but is now valued at just US$62 billion, compared to Apple’s current market cap of US$338 billion.

    Apple acquired HP’s vacated “Executive Briefing Center” Pruneridge campus in Cupertino, California, and has plans to develop the site, along with adjacent land it already owned, into a futuristic new “Apple Campus 2” site, located one freeway exit away from its current Infinite Loop headquarters.

  • Samsung announces Spinpoint M8 1 TB internal hard drives for notebooks

    You might just like this.

    Per Macworld, Samsung this week announced the Spinpoint M8 internal hard drive with 1TB capacity.

    The drive features two 500GB platters and is 9.5-millimeter (0.37 inches) high, so the drive can fit easily into laptop storage bays. The 5400-rpm Spinpoint M8 is priced at US$129, and available in the U.S. and Europe.

    Until recently, the previous top capacity had been 750GB of storage, an option offered by companies like Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, which currently offers an option in which buyers can select two drives for a total of 1.5TB of storage on a notebook.

    Companies such as Toshiba and Western Digital offer 1TB internal laptop drives, but top notebook makers are not yet offering 1TB drives as an option. Desktop hard drives with 1TB storage are now commonly available.

    The Spinpoint M8 drive is denser than earlier models as it can store more data per unit area, Samsung said. The drive is also more power efficient as it carries fewer components like heads to seek and access data.

    The disk is about 7% faster than its predecessor and uses 8% less power, Samsung said.

    The drive operates on the 3gbps SATA interface and has 8MB buffer memory. It generates less noise and an overall redesign of the drive structure protects the disc from physical fracture and data loss, Samsung said.

    As always, let us know what you make of this in the comments.

  • Apple releases Epson printer drivers 2.4, HP printer drivers 2.4.1 for Snow Leopard users

    snowleopard

    Late Wednesday, Apple released updated sets of Snow Leopard drivers for Hewlett-Packard and Epson printers and scanners.

    Per Macworld, the first is version 2.4 of the Epson drivers, which comes in a package listed on Apple’s download page at a whopping 737MB; Epson Printer Drivers 2.4 provides updated compatibility between Mac OS X 10.6 or later and dozens of scanners and printers made by Epson.

    On the HP side, the update, dubbed version number 2.4.1, is listed at a significantly smaller 388MB for the full download.) HP Printer Drivers 2.4.1 requires OS X 10.6.1 or higher in order to function and provides support for both printers and scanners made by Hewlett-Packard.

    Both updates can be installed through the Software Update built into Mac OS X, or obtained directly from Apple’s Website for Support Downloads.

  • Apple, Dell, HP Notebook Owners Consolidating Class-Action Suit Against Nvidia

    nvidialogo.jpg
    Respective owners of Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard notebooks have combined their lawsuits against graphics chip maker Nvidia in an attempt to create a stronger class action suit to force the company to replace flawed processors.
    If successful, the case could involve millions of notebooks in question.
    According to Macworld UK, the five plaintiffs, including a Louisiana resident who purchased an Apple MacBook Pro a year ago, filed an amended complaint last week in a San Francisco federal court which accused Nvidia of violating consumer-protection laws.
    Nvidia had admitted to the problem in July of 2008 when the company stated that some older chipsets that had shipped in “significant quantities” of notebooks were flawed. In a subsequent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company argued that its chip suppliers, the laptop makers and even consumers were to blame.
    Nvidia later told the SEC that it would take a US$196 million charge to pay for replacing the graphics processors.
    Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard in turn told their users that some of the notebooks contained faulty Nvidia chipsets. Apple later stated that the company had been misled, citing that “Nvidia assured Apple that Mac computers with these graphics processors were not affected,” Apple said in a support document posted last October.
    “However, after an Apple-led investigation, Apple has determined that some MacBook Pro computers … may be affected.”
    Click the jump for the full story…