Meg Whitman, CEO of Hewlett-Packard, wants HP to get back into the ever booming tablet business, reports Bangkok Post. Having burnt their hands with WebOS powered TocuhPad tablets, this time HP will be bringing tablets in the market with Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system.

After acquiring Palm for $1.2 billion, HP launched their first WebOS based TouchPad tablets in the market. However, due to poor response from the market, HP decided to shut down TouchPad tablets and sold the available stock for $99, which sold like hot cakes. HP then shut down their smartphone business and was looking to sell WebOS. However, since it didn’t find any buyer, HP decided to open source the OS.

Now, HP is ready to start production on its tablets based on Windows 8. HP’s Windows 8 based tablets will come with cloud-based integration that will allow users to sync files between multiple devices.

Meg Whitman, after taking charge of HP,  reversed the decision to spin off the PC business. Under her leadership HP gain its foothold again in the market.

During a surprise appearance at the Global Influencer Summit 2012 in Shanghai, Whitman said that, as the world becomes more digital, HP’s PC and printing franchises continue to increase in importance. She said that, “PCs are a part of how we create and access digital information. We’ve found that we can differentiate our products through design and innovation. As the only player with leadership positions in both the consumer and the enterprise markets, we can bridge that gap that is being created by the consumerisation of IT,” reports ARNnet.

Apple still remains the darling of consumers when it comes to tablet market share with Apple’s iPad capturing 68 per cent tablet market share in the first quarter of 2012, according to IDC.

Have you ever heard of a particular HP notebook series that was a released about 5 years ago that resulted in a large-scale downturn for the whole HP Pavilion DV6000 series? If you haven’t, you most probably did not have the pleasure of purchasing one of those DV 6000 series, as most of my friends did. I suppose you might not know what happened next, so read on.

Here’s the story. It happened five years ago, but there is a lot that we can learn here, both the manufacturers and the clients. I would even mention computer repair companies – they too had a lesson, and it was a very profitable one.

HP company released their DV 6000 laptop series and wholesalers as well as retailers grabbed the novelty without much consideration. It was really a product one would love to lay hands on. Shiny, attractive black lid, cool imprint design, smooth keyboard and blue activity lights surely made it distinguishable amongst other models. Technical features were outstanding, moreover – the considerably small price made you think it’s a life’s mistake to pass on this one.

I don’t know why I didn’t buy it; maybe I just had enough trouble with my rather old Acer 14 inch laptop (a true headache with flashing screen and broken speakers). Anyway, at least 4 of my friends bought the HP DV series laptops, and I figure, the nationwide sales were significant, to say the least.

Within a year after the huge sales the DV 6000 model laptops started crashing. The screens would flicker with the occasional blue screen of death messages and often laptops wouldn’t even start. What’s worse – it was not a one notebook problem. People in my town started bringing damaged HP laptops one after another and the computer diagnostics and repair companies had the same diagnosis for most of them – damaged motherboard.

The real problem was the integrated graphics card. As you may know, they emit heat and in order to cool those down manufacturers usually attach to them copper radiators. DV series laptops had video cards with insufficient cooling system that resulted in overheating and consequently video card connectors bouncing off the motherboard. A small copper coin sweated on the top of the video card might have solved the problem, yet how many of us, folks, can even unscrew the laptop or identify the integrated card?

Hence, the unhappy clients were headed to the warranty services only to find out that their warranty was valid for 1 year, which meant that a large part of customers had to pay for the repair services and the price was pretty high. The cost for motherboard repairs or should I say replacement was between 100 – 250 dollars. Considering the price of the laptop (around 700 dollars) it was a lot. A number of wealthier customers just bought a new laptop (not HP). The ones who couldn’t afford that had no choice, but to spend a couple of hundred dollars for the repairs.

Now the stupid part – even after the repairs most of those laptops started malfunctioning within a couple of months. The reason was ridiculous – the replaced motherboards were of the same discarded model and it was just a matter of time when they would start bouncing off again.

Finally, a lot of computer repair companies made a nice profit from this model alone. Some of them didn’t even bother to replace motherboards – their just used heating devices to solder back the graphics card and the laptop would function for a month or two. The client would pay 200 bucks for the job that consisted of unscrewing the laptop and heating here and there. Of course, he was warned about the replaced motherboard and the possibility of malfunction.

What conclusion can I draw from this peculiar story? First – even small and unimportant details of just one model can threaten a tech business. Second – be smart, think twice before spending your money and read the warranty. Third – don’t trust every word a computer technician say. They are people – just like you.

==== About the author ====

Thomas Grec is a computer technician and network administrator working in this kind of field for almost 10 years. Besides fixing and tweaking pc, network and server systems he finds some time to write how to articles in http://computerdiagnostics4u.com

HP, the personal computing giant of yesteryear, which has seen sales of its PCs decline over the last couple of years, is planning to restructure its business in order to make it more cost efficient and reduce costs, according to a report by AllThingsD.

It will be moving its Imaging and Printing Group (Printers) under its Personal Systems Group (Personal Computers), with the new larger division reporting to a single head.

HP’s printer business was one of its most profitable ones, but had seen sales decline over the last couple of quarters. Its PC business has also not been doing very well, as worldwide desktops sales have slowed down and are expected to decline going forward. Both businesses combined added up to more than 50% of HP’s total revenues in 2011.

HP was planning to spin off the PC division or sell it to someone like IBM under its previous CEO Apotheker’s management, but the new CEO, Meg Whitman scrapped that plan.

HP’s printer business has much higher operating margins than its PC business, but given the product synergies and the overlapping target customer base, it may actually be a good call on its part to combine the two to cut costs, improve margins and maybe improve sales.

The future of HP’s PC business depends on how well it capitalizes on the ultrabook and tablet trend, following the launch of Windows 8 in late 2012.

On Wednesday during an earnings call, HP CEO Meg Whitman stated that we can expect HP Windows 8 x86 PCs by this holiday season. According to reports, Whitman stated at a small gathering of “entrepreneurs and executives” that HP plans to release a tablet device targeted towards business and enterprise users by the end of the year. Presumably, it will not be an ARM device, but rather a full-featured x86 device.

“It is not really a tablet market, it is an iPad market” exclaimed Whitman. Whether she was referring specifically to the enterprise sector, or to the general consumer sector, she would be right in either case. Surely, HP intends to try to steal away some of that marketshare with x86 Windows 8 tablets for the enterprise, and ARM tablets for average consumers.

She also claimed that iPads and iPhones are currently insecure.

“There is a big trend to BYOD to work; which is all well and good until there is a security breach,” she said, referring to people increasing bringing their own devices such as iPhones or iPads to use on the job.

“We are going to provide an alternative.”

What’s interesting is that she broadly specified “devices”, and mentioned the iPhone in her example. I don’t want to read too far into this quote, but is she hinting at HP possibly making phones — Windows Phones — sometime down the road as well? Perhaps after the webOS flop, they didn’t want to back out of the game entirely. Seeing that Windows Phone does have traction, potential, and enthusiasm, it’s likely that they’re contemplating using it as their next mobile OS platform to complement their Windows 8 tablets.

While it’s not news that HP have begun their open sourcing efforts for webOS, the fact that they have published their official roadmap for the project, however, is. 

Back in 2011, HP decided to open source webOS. They flogged their TouchPads and made a bunch of money. They couldn’t find any buyers to sell the platform they built from the ground up. They decided their best choice was to throw open the doors and give it away for free. It’s taken just under 2 months for them to release anything, and today they have.

The HP webOS Developer Blog has posted the official announcement of their efforts in open sourcing their Javascript Application Framework – Enyo. Enyo is a completely cross-platform, open source, highly customizable and extensible application framework. Open sourcing Enyo was the first step in the roadmap, with only 5 days left before a soft deadline.

According to their press release, HP hopes to have completed open sourcing of webOS by the end of August 2012, when they release “Open WebOS 1.0″. Scratch the first entry, it’s done.

• January: Enyo 2.0 and Enyo source code Apache License, Version 2.0 
• February: Intended project governance model, QT WebKit extensions, JavaScript core, UI Enyo widgets
• March: Linux standard kernel, Graphics extensions EGL, LevelDB, USB extensions
• April: Ares 2.0, Enyo 2.1, Node services
• July: System manager (“Luna”), System manager bus, Core applications, Enyo 2.2
• August: Build release model, Open webOS Beta, Open webOS 1.0

Hopefully by August, HP will have completely weeded out any and all binary blobs from webOS, open sourced all the bits under the hood, and packaged it with the proper license (Enyo is licensed under Apache 2.0) that truly gives developers, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and hackers the ability to push webOS forward.

Although HP has indicated they have a good interest in using webOS in the near future, putting it all out there with a hands-off approach would likely better the chances of a bright future for webOS. Nokia did it with Maemo and there is a very strong and smart community who are still using and developing for devices that were EOL’d a long time ago. The webOS community is full of resilient, bright, and talented people who will take webOS under their wing.

All webOS needs is some new hardware. If the above image is what you have in mind and you work at HP, please walk yourself off a cliff before you ruin all the hard work Palm did.

HP unveiled its new Envy 14 Spectre ultrabook that will be running on the upcoming Ivy Bridge processors that were earlier demoed by Intel. The HP Spectre is definitely a looker. It sports a glossy mid-night black Gorilla-glass lid, is 20 mm thin, and features a 14 inch screen with super thin bezel and Radiance display. HP insists that the glass lid will not compromise the durability of the ultrabook.

In terms of configuration, the Spectre is a pretty standard affair with Core i5-2467M CPU and 4 GB of RAM. The battery is said to last for nine hours. Interested users will have the option of upgrading to 256 GB SSD and 8 GB RAM. Typical HP goodies such as impactful speakers with Beats technology, and CoolSense are also present. HP has even thrown in free copies of Photoshop and Premiere Elements 10, along with a two-year subscription to Norton Internet Security. The other differentiating feature of the Spectre comes courtesy the Intel Ivy Bridge processor that includes NFC support.

The Spectre is drool worthy, but it will definitely make your wallet a lot lighter. Priced at $1,399.99, the Spectre is more expensive than the MacBook Air that is likely to be its biggest competitor. The Spectre will launch in the States on Feb 8, and goes on sale in Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom in early March.

HP has finally decided the fate of webOS – today, it announced that it will contribute webOS to the open source community. It also stated that it plans to be active in the development and support of webOS going forward.

“webOS is the only platform designed from the ground up to be mobile, cloud-connected and scalable. By contributing this innovation, HP unleashes the creativity of the open source community to advance a new generation of applications and devices.” said Meg Whitman, HP president and CEO.

Looks like it didn’t find any buyers for webOS, not for the price it wanted to offload it at. While it hasn’t specifically stated otherwise, it’s unlikely that HP will continue to develop hardware powered by webOS. It may use webOS on its printers, but don’t expect any webOS smartphones or tablets in the near future.

webOS was one of the most promising mobile platforms in recent times. It didn’t do as well as iOS or Android, of course, but it surely didn’t deserve to die. Thanks to HP, now it hopefully won’t. But then again, even Symbian was open sourced by Nokia long ago, and that didn’t seem to help it much. In the end, Nokia just abandoned it to embrace Windows Phone.

HP has also stated that it will be contributing ENYO, the app framework for webOS to the community too, in the near future.

Check out the complete press release by HP – HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

Despite being relegated to certain death, HP is actually still providing software updates to webOS.

Although HP has squandered millions (actually, billions)  with their acquisition of Palm for webOS, developed and then torched their TouchPad in an attempt to hit billboard status, beyond all expectations, they are still working on webOS behind the scenes. The webOS-Internals team is reporting that the Pre 2, now almost a year old, is set to receive an update to OS 2.2.4 which almost brings it to parity with features of the rare Pre 3.

If you’re unfortunate enough to have both a Pre 2 and a TouchPad, this update will allow the devices to talk over bluetooth in order to share text messages, as well as phone calls. While using bluetooth is a good way to keep the data local, iPhone and iPad users have iMessage which syncs over iCloud in order to keep your messages up-to-date on all devices, which means you don’t need to be in close proximity of your phone. A much better implementation.

Amongst all the hullabaloo concerning mobile security, webOS 2.2.4 also implements encryption for the local filesystem. This likely means system databases and essential files are either stored within a real cryptfs or are encrypted separately. Not quite as handy as having the ability to remote wipe without running your own Exchange server, but it’s a step in the right direction for data integrity.

Hopefully some bugs were squashed and there’s more to the changelog than 5 features, but judging by the package size (46MB), it’s not likely. It’s still unfortunate that webOS is floating in limbo with HP, but it’s great to see that the webOS team is still looking at the future for current users.

When HP first launched the TouchPad, no one wanted it. However, when it discontinued it and tried to offload its entire TouchPad inventory in a firesale for just $99 a pop, everyone on the planet wanted one.

HP may have lost a ton of money in the firesale, but here’s some good news. According to a report by NPD, HP’s TouchPad was the most popular tablet after the iPad in the U.S tablet market, for the first three quarters of 2011.

While Apple sold close to 11 million iPads in the last quarter alone, around 1.2 million tablets were sold by all the other manufacturers combined, from January to October 2011.

Of those 1.2 million, HP managed to grab 17% share with the TouchPad, while the most popular Android tablet manufacturer, Samsung, captured a 16% share. I’m really surprised to see HP beat Samsung, but then Samsung’s tablet offerings were priced much higher than the TouchPad.

HP’s TouchPad firesale validated the fact that despite the tremendous popularity of the iPad, there is still a market for budget tablets. Amazon has already launched the Kindle Fire to capture a majority market share in that space.

Asus, Motorola and Acer trailed Samsung in the list. Hopefully, the coming year will be better for Android tablet manufacturers, considering that Android Ice Cream Sandwich tablets should be coming out soon.

HP revealed its Q4 2011 earnings results, and the whole blogosphere is laughing at how it made a fool of itself by buying webOS (Palm) for $1.2 billion, and then wasted another ton of cash trying to wind it down.

Eventually, it may make good on its webOS investment by selling it off to some other mobile company. Rumors suggest that Palm’s patent stash is quite valuable now that the patent wars are on in the industry.

HP is currently busy finding buyers willing to take Palm’s assets, including webOS, off its hands. However, it has included a clause in the deal which requires the buyer to license webOS back to HP, for use in its printers.

HP first promised us printers powered by webOS when it acquired Palm. It may not be a big deal for any of us, but printers still account for a major portion of HP’s revenues. It made close to $6.4 billion in revenue in the last quarter, from the Imaging and Printing group.

However, its revenue was still down 10% year-on-year. Even a small boost in printer sales could mean a significant increase in HP’s topline growth.

Personally, I don’t think webOS on printers is that big a deal, after all, it’s a printer, not a smartphone or a tablet. But you never know. It definitely won’t cost HP much; the buyer of webOS may just throw it in to speed up the deal.