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Monday, May 21, 2012

Are You Thinking at the Speed of Print or the Speed of Content?


2012

Time is compressing.

It was just in 2009, a mere three years ago – or actually, just under 36 months – when MpS started showing up in its current form.

At conferences, show floors were jam-packed with MpS propositions; Konica Minolta, OKI, Xerox, LMI, GreatAmerica, Digital Gateway, ECi, Compass, Strategy Development, M2M, Synnex, NER, and many more were “all-in.”

Granted, it wasn’t really MpS.

Fliers plastered with “MPS” stickers; sales classes pushing MpS selling cycles, TCO, and the like; but the content was still copier sales, copier leasing, toner cartridges. Desk-side toner delivery/auto-fulfill, just fresh off the whiteboard, was being touted and sold.

What was big back then?

Saturday, May 19, 2012

HP, Lexmark and Xerox - Their Words, In the Clouds

Everybody is going to the Clouds and in that spirit, I went out and created Word Clouds based on two conference call transcripts and one interview - from the horses' mouth, sort of speak.

Word, or Tag Clouds generate a picture based on the quantity each word is mentioned in a given field of text. All I did was C&P transcripts and the application did most of the work.

Entertaining and illuminating.

Enjoy.

Lexmark - Seeking Alpha, May, 2012 -

"...our performance in the MPS segment itself is very strong, but more importantly it’s the way we go to market. So over 70% of our hardware revenue is in that large workgroup category, which is really the Enterprise segment of the market and that percentage is growing and it’s being driven by our ability to deliver high-end services and solutions..."
- John W. Gamble.


Word cloud made with WordItOut

HP Conference Call, February, 2012 -

"...In Imaging and Printing, year-over-year revenues decreased 7% with declines in supplies and hardware in consumer and commercial. And operating margin declined to 12.2%...IPG has been the lifeblood of our company for a long time with great margins and very resilient revenues...But we also have to recognize that the business is being pressured on multiple fronts, and revenues from our adjacent businesses...are doing quite well, but not developing fast enough to replace the revenues we've been losing. We have work to do here and are aggressively exploring ways to build on IPG's leadership given the realities of today's marketplace..." 
- Meg Whitman


Word cloud made with WordItOut

Xerox Conference Call, April, 2012 - 

"...You've heard me say this before, but it bears repeating. Some companies talk about transformation; we're actually doing it. Our results this quarter and our expectations for the balance of this year reflect the shifts happening in our business..."
- Ursula Burns


Click to email me. 

Thursday, May 17, 2012

It Begins: H-P to Unload 25,000 employees...

I got a question for you. How many MBA's does it take to get 25,000 people laid-off?  Ignore that.

The rest of the world see's output waning, the largest company in the world builds devices without the ability to print and the smartest people in the room cancel a tablet after 49 days.  Quick, get that drawer statement out.

Right now, it's too easy to kick Mother Blue in the chops - it is good to remember that "25,000" isn't just a figure on a screen - it represents 25,000 fathers, mothers, sons and daughters - families.

Dare I say, believers.  So to mock the poor souls taking early retirement or collecting pink slips, is cruel.

I won't do that.

I will say this - its easy to snicker and sneer at the mighty as they fall - especially the arrogant.  But we do not live in a vacuum and we are no longer islands.

I wrote a quip back in September referring to whenever HP sneezes, the rest of us get Zombie Flu.

I fear the trickle-down ramifications of a larger print OEM contracting Zombie Flu. What the hell is going to happen to all the 'little-people'?

Huh.  No worries, we're ready.

From around the interweb, first reports of this latest disturbance in the Force.

From Houston Business Journal, May 17:

The source told Business Insider that HP wants to downsize its workforce — which totals 320,000 worldwide — by 10 percent to 15 percent, though Business Insider doesn’t expect the company to eliminate that many jobs all at once. Also, manufacturing employees are not expected to be hit as hard as others, Business Insider said.

From Business Insider, May 16:

Layoffs are going to be significant. 


At least, they'll be bigger than what Whitman has said so far. She's said that layoffs would NOT be "broad-based" at least in China (whatever that means), but she didn't say anything about the rest of the worldwide workforce.


Our source said HP wants to trim its workforce by 10%-15%. Given that HP has 320,000 employees, a 10% reduction would be 32,000 workers gone. However, that would include an early retirement program. 


We'd guess that this would include attrition, too, where new hires don't come in when employees leave. That number sounds high and we don't expect HP to promise it next week, because HP will also want to shift some jobs offshore. So, HP's total workforce numbers won't reflect all of the cuts.

Barron's, May 17 -

Business Insider’s Julie Bort this morning is back on the corporate layoff beat, writing that one unnamed source at Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) tells her that there will be “massive” job cuts at the company, perhaps as much as 10% to 15%, or 32,000 to 48,000 workers.


ISI Group’s Brian Marshall this morning writes that a so-called Reduction in Force would “improve confidence in HPQ’s guidance for ‘at least $4.00 in EPS in fiscal 2012′ and enable investments in strategic, higher-growth areas.’” Marshall has a Buy rating on HP shares.

ZDNet, May 17 -

HP’s operating profit per employee trails rivals, according to a Morgan Stanley analysis.


For instance, IBM’s operating profit per employee is $49,000. Apple’s is the same. EMC makes $67,000 in operating profit per employee.


HP’s tally: $35,000.


The only way for HP to change that metric—assuming the company can’t suddenly boost growth—is to lay off workers.

And of course there is this:

Number of people seeking jobless benefits unchanged last week


The number of people seeking unemployment benefits was unchanged last week, suggesting steady gains in the job market.


The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly unemployment aid applications stayed at a seasonally adjusted 370,000, the same level as the previous week. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, fell for the second straight week, to 375,000....

Here.



















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