hewlett-packard

Hewlett-Packard is laying off as many as 525 employees in connection with its plans to ax its WebOS hardware business, according to a report.

AllThingsD's John Paczkowski says sources told him the pink slips began going out this week and that HP confirmed the layoffs with a statement reading, in part, "the WebOS GBU is undergoing a reduction in workforce." The company would not say how many workers were being let go, Paczkowski says.

HP announced the shuttering of the WebOS hardware unit during its August 18 earnings call. The unit has been responsible for the TouchPad tablet and Palm Pre phone.

HP says it will close the division by the end of this fiscal year's fourth quarter, which wraps up October 31.

Updated with the 525 figure on Monday evening.… Read more

Earlier this week, Hewlett-Packard Chairman Ray Lane said to a trade publication that he favors using "HP" in the name of a spun off PC business. He also explained that investors don't necessarily like innovation.

In a CRN interview, Lane said he's "lobbying, and I don't have to lobby very hard" to call it the "HP PC Business. Call it HP." It would be a "sister company" like Agilent, which HP spun off in 1999, he said to CRN.

Lane also re-emphasized that a final decision has not yet … Read more

Hewlett-Packard risks putting its PC business in an awkward "lame duck status" as it looks to spin it out.

Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu believes that such a move could take 12 to 18 months given the legal, tax, and business issues that need to be sorted out, in line with the company's own expectations. HP is opting to go the spin-off route because of the lack of buyers and the tax-free nature of such a transaction.

But the downside to a spin-off is the length of time necessary to prepare for such a move. HP has … Read more

Samsung Electronics says it isn't buying MeeGo. In fact, Samsung says it couldn't even if it wanted to.

"Meego is an open-source project which cannot be a target of acquisition," Samsung representative James Chung told CNET today.

The response dashed hopes that MeeGo might be saved through an acquisition, which was spurred this week by a Mobiledia report that Samsung was interested in a deal.

Many had expected Samsung and other handset manufacturers to look toward acquiring their own mobile operating system, which would allow them to reduce their dependence on Google's Android platform. Google'… Read more

Social-media manager is not a job to covet after your company has spent the past week often mishandling the announcement of a huge transition. Especially if that transition involves getting out of your core business, canceling some much-hyped products that you just launched, liquidating those products at fire sale prices, canceling numerous liquidation orders after over-selling the inventory, and then announcing that you're going to make one last batch to meet the demand, except that... you still might not meet the demand.

In case you missed it, Hewlett-Packard announced earlier in the month that it is looking to get … Read more

In a new court filing, Oracle accused Hewlett-Packard of committing fraud by hiding its plans to hire Leo Apotheker as CEO and Ray Lane as chairman at the time the two companies were working on a settlement agreement to bring former HP CEO Mark Hurd to Oracle.

The complaint, which was filed today in San Jose, Calif., asks a Santa Clara County judge to revoke the settlement the two companies made in September of last year, saying Oracle would have never agreed to it if it had known that HP was "actively concealing material information."

That information was … Read more

Anyone still hankering for a $99 TouchPad can snag a few details about the tablet's future directly from Hewlett-Packard.

In a blog posted yesterday, HP representative Mark Budgell said he didn't know if or when more TouchPads will be available but promised an update "in the next few days." Anyone who has already signed up on HP's Web site to be notified of more stock will receive an e-mail, he said. But due to the overwhelming demand, HP has now turned off the ability to sign up for the notification service.

Budgell and fellow HP … Read more

Samsung may not be interested in buying Hewlett-Packard's PC business, but the company may be eying HP's mobile WebOS division, according to a report from DigiTimes.

Last week, Samsung denied rumors that it plans to buy HP's PC business. But now some sources are telling tech blogs that Samsung may be considering purchasing WebOS. HP announced plans earlier this month to spin off its PC business. The company also killed its mobile product line, which uses software from its acquisition of Palm called WebOS.

Samsung's potential interest in WebOS might make sense given Google's recent … Read more

On Friday, August 19, Apple's iPad finally met its marketing match. That's when Hewlett-Packard's TouchPad went on sale for as little as $99 and triggered the kind of buying frenzy that had been reserved exclusively for products from Apple.

Over the last year and a half, no other tablet had been able to come as close as the TouchPad to eclipsing the fixation that consumers have had on the iPad.

Roger Kay, principal analyst at Endpoint Technologies, believes the TouchPad's demise should give Apple pause. Especially if such a product were repeated by another major tablet … Read more