HP reduces drastically employees

[Thott]

No good news, just read (translated from German to Englisch by Google ):

————-(@ ARD Tagesschau, 04.10.2019)

The new head of computer group HP will take office in November. But already he announced that up to 9000 employees have to leave for cost reasons.

The computer and printer manufacturer HP wants to delete about every sixth job in the group. As part of the restructuring plan for the fiscal year 2020 between 7000 and 9000 jobs should be reduced, the company said. HP currently employs approximately 55,000 people worldwide.

Through the announced cuts, the company wants to save by the end of the fiscal year 2022 around one billion dollars a year, said the future boss Enrique Lores. The reorganization of the group should be completed by then. HP should focus more on services in the future.

[Claudio L.]

(10-04-2019 11:38 AM)Thott Wrote:  No good news, just read (translated from German to Englisch by Google ):

————-(@ ARD Tagesschau, 04.10.2019)

The new head of computer group HP will take office in November. But already he announced that up to 9000 employees have to leave for cost reasons.

The computer and printer manufacturer HP wants to delete about every sixth job in the group. As part of the restructuring plan for the fiscal year 2020 between 7000 and 9000 jobs should be reduced, the company said. HP currently employs approximately 55,000 people worldwide.

Through the announced cuts, the company wants to save by the end of the fiscal year 2022 around one billion dollars a year, said the future boss Enrique Lores. The reorganization of the group should be completed by then. HP should focus more on services in the future.

It's all over the news... best of luck for the calculator group. The company wants to move out of low-margin hardware (like calculators) and into services... and ink.
My suggestion: Modify the firmware of the HP Prime to require a genuine HP ink cartridge, and make the cartridge good for no more than 1000 calculations (OK, you can also sell the XL version for 3000 calculations at 3 times the price). As long as the bean counters think they can sell overpriced ink cartridges together with the Prime, the calculators may survive.

[David Hayden]

(10-04-2019 02:40 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  My suggestion: Modify the firmware of the HP Prime to require a genuine HP ink cartridge

How much ink is required to update the display on an HP Prime? If I switch to a white background, will that reduce the amount? Is color more expensive than B/W? Is there a B/W theme that I should use instead?



Dave

[Gene222]

(10-04-2019 02:40 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  The company wants to move out of low-margin hardware (like calculators) and into services... and ink.

I can't believe any company would want to get into ink when the market has move on to e-documents, laser printers, and ink-jet printers with large capacity refillable tanks. I guess stuff like this happens when a tech company favors marketing over R&D.

[StephenG1CMZ]

Perhaps a HP printer could be a required interface between the HP Prime and the HP Ink...
Even better if it could print as well.
Seriously though: Good luck to all those affected.

[badaze]

HP are no more pioneers

[twdeckard]

Perhaps they could revive the Cal-Tech

http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/ti_cal-tech.html

I believe it was thermal not ink

[Gene222]

(10-04-2019 02:40 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  My suggestion: Modify the firmware of the HP Prime to require a genuine HP ink cartridge

Be careful what you wish for. Some companies might require that their proprietary and copyrighted ink cartridge only be used with their proprietary and copyrighted printer. And, if they detect that you are using someone else's ink cartridge (perhaps through the printer software update) in their proprietary and copyrighted printer, they might permanently disable your printer's internal software ROM (and Prime calculator) under the digital rights management laws (DRM). The same laws used by the movie industries. The poor soul who bought the printer, may never buy that company's printer ever again.

[Siegfried]

(10-04-2019 10:29 PM)twdeckard Wrote:  Perhaps they could revive the Cal-Tech

http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/ti_cal-tech.html

I believe it was thermal not ink

The Pocketronic was thermal. Still have one my father got for his office and passed on, but I doubt it‘ll be easy to get replacement paper tape cartridges. It‘s a really neat System, though.

Part of the HP announcement stated that they would increase prices of printers that accept third-party ink.

[StephenG1CMZ]

(10-04-2019 10:30 PM)Gene222 Wrote:  

(10-04-2019 02:40 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  My suggestion: Modify the firmware of the HP Prime to require a genuine HP ink cartridge

Be careful what you wish for. Some companies might require that their proprietary and copyrighted ink cartridge only be used with their proprietary and copyrighted printer. And, if they detect that you are using someone else's ink cartridge (perhaps through the printer software update) in their proprietary and copyrighted printer, they might permanently disable your printer's internal software ROM (and Prime calculator) under the digital rights management laws (DRM). The same laws used by the movie industries. The poor soul who bought the printer, may never buy that company's printer ever again.

But disabling your devices would not be popular.
A more lucrative solution would be for those proprietory Ink cartridges to be sold much cheaper than their 3rd party competitors. This could be achieved by having the ink cartridges insert a 'copyright HP' into every result that you calculate and print.

[Thott]

Far the worst for HP is, that after such announcements the most skilled and experienced employees will start locking for a new job and quit.

Cheap for the company because they do not have to pay severance payments but a disaster for HPs technology and R&D to be still competitive on the market.

That means a slow but steadily downfall.
When the company will be aware of it in the future.....it will be to late!

HP will go from a technology company to a ink & printer seller and a service provider....

What a shame!

[lrdheat]

Kind of reminds me of The Sharper Image which started out with a variety of neat gadgets, and then started selling cheap trash like 100X "so called military" binoculars, cheap shortwave radios, and finally seemed to turninto a fan store...their catalogue would come with the first 8,10,12 pages dedicated to ionization fan towers or whatever.

[Claudio L.]

(10-04-2019 10:30 PM)Gene222 Wrote:  

(10-04-2019 02:40 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  My suggestion: Modify the firmware of the HP Prime to require a genuine HP ink cartridge

Be careful what you wish for. Some companies might require that their proprietary and copyrighted ink cartridge only be used with their proprietary and copyrighted printer. And, if they detect that you are using someone else's ink cartridge (perhaps through the printer software update) in their proprietary and copyrighted printer, they might permanently disable your printer's internal software ROM (and Prime calculator) under the digital rights management laws (DRM). The same laws used by the movie industries. The poor soul who bought the printer, may never buy that company's printer ever again.

Wish for? I was almost quoting their own press release. They are planning to increase the price of all printers that may accept 3rd party cartridges and lower the price of the ones with locked down firmware that won't print unless the cartridge is HP genuine.
They don't disable your printer permanently, but it won't print if the ink is not HP. Same difference...
I guess your printer is not HP if you didn't know that. Mine is, locked down tight to use only their ink.

[Steve Simpkin]

(10-05-2019 09:10 PM)Gene222 Wrote:  It's also like Kodak. Kodak's R&D developed one of the first digital cameras. But Kodak's top management believed this technology would interfere with the company's profits in selling film, so they suppressed it. Kodak stuck with the film business all the way to bankruptcy.

"One of Steve Job's business rules was to "never be afraid of cannibalizing yourself. If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will," he said. So even though an Iphone might cannibalize sales of an IPod, or an IPad might cannibalize sales of a laptop, that did not deter him."
Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs

[DA74254]

(10-05-2019 08:38 AM)StephenG1CMZ Wrote:  

(10-04-2019 10:30 PM)Gene222 Wrote:  Be careful what you wish for. Some companies might require that their proprietary and copyrighted ink cartridge only be used with their proprietary and copyrighted printer. And, if they detect that you are using someone else's ink cartridge (perhaps through the printer software update) in their proprietary and copyrighted printer, they might permanently disable your printer's internal software ROM (and Prime calculator) under the digital rights management laws (DRM). The same laws used by the movie industries. The poor soul who bought the printer, may never buy that company's printer ever again.

But disabling your devices would not be popular.
A more lucrative solution would be for those proprietory Ink cartridges to be sold much cheaper than their 3rd party competitors. This could be achieved by having the ink cartridges insert a 'copyright HP' into every result that you calculate and print.

Just remember the FTDI gate:
https://hackaday.com/tag/ftdi-gate/

And again..
https://hackaday.com/2016/02/01/ftdi-dri...ips-again/

[DA74254]

(10-06-2019 03:04 AM)Claudio L. Wrote:  ... Mine is, locked down tight to use only their ink.

So as one of my Brother Laser printers. It claims it's out of toner after 6 months, whether I've used it to print one single page or a thousand in that period.
Luckily I found a way to hack it so that it both accept third party toner and also does not "run empty" after 6 months.

But no, Brother will not be considered when a new printer is due. Nor will HP..

[Gene222]

(10-06-2019 03:04 AM)Claudio L. Wrote:  Wish for? I was almost quoting their own press release. They are planning to increase the price of all printers that may accept 3rd party cartridges and lower the price of the ones with locked down firmware that won't print unless the cartridge is HP genuine.
They don't disable your printer permanently, but it won't print if the ink is not HP. Same difference...
I guess your printer is not HP if you didn't know that. Mine is, locked down tight to use only their ink.

My printer was not an HP. It was a 11x17 inkjet printer and scanner. I think I paid about $400+ for it. After a while, I bought third party ink cartridges for it to cut down on ink costs. This worked fine for a year or so, then after an automatic printer software update, I got a print cartridge not recognized error. For a while, I could reset my printer, but later I got another printer software update that I could not reset. The error disables all functions on the printer. Using OEM cartridges did not remove the error. So, I tossed my printer to the electronics recycle bin and bought a new printer with large refillable ink tanks and move on. However, back then I heard that the same thing had happened to HP printers.

Today, I googled HP printers and found a press release from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, dated January 7, 2019. It stated that HP did the same thing.

"SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 7, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- A settlement has been reached with HP in a class action lawsuit about Dynamic Security, a technology HP placed on certain of its inkjet printers. Plaintiffs allege Dynamic Security caused printers to stop working if they were using certain non-HP replacement ink cartridges. HP agrees under the settlement not to reactivate Dynamic Security in the Class Printers and to pay $1.5 million. HP denies that it did anything wrong."

[Alex S]

(10-06-2019 04:23 PM)DA74254 Wrote:  But no, Brother will not be considered when a new printer is due. Nor will HP..

Good luck, though! All manufacturers do the same tricks on the low-end printers.

[DA74254]

(10-07-2019 06:46 AM)Alex S Wrote:  

(10-06-2019 04:23 PM)DA74254 Wrote:  But no, Brother will not be considered when a new printer is due. Nor will HP..

Good luck, though! All manufacturers do the same tricks on the low-end printers.

Had it been so that I bought "low-end" printers..
All I have are office printers, designated for high print volumes. I use the laser one mainly to print books that I bind myself.

Anyway, next ink-printer will be refillable tank Epson printer. Have not really researched which laser I'll buy nekt. I do need a laser for my laser-printable-only watertight plastic-type sheets used for covers and for field notebooks. You won't imagine how muddy it can be to log a T5 geocache

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

(10-07-2019 06:46 AM)Alex S Wrote:  All manufacturers do the same tricks on the low-end printers.

Although it won't help the 9000 employees of HP who are going to be made redundant over the next years I have to object to this statement.

Over 10 years ago I bought an inkjet printer from Canon (which is still working fine) because it does not use such tricks. It has separate ink cartridges for each colour and a separate print head which can indiviually be replaced or refilled when required. There are no counters and no chips and nothing else that prevents one from using third party replacements. And the original ink cartridges are not crazily expensive either. Canon is still doing very well in that market so obviously one does not have to rip-off one's customers in order to sell printers with a profit.

Regards
Max