SomeGadgetGuy on Good Day LA – Laptops for the Family!

Backpacks, binders, pencils and supplies. You’ve spent wads of cash already, and now you’re realizing that your children are all needing to do homework online at the same time but you only have one computer. What to do? We have inexpensive laptops for families on a budget AND some premium options for the high school or college bound creatives who need more horsepower.

Many thanks to Maria Quiban, Tshaka Armstrong, and the crew at Good Day L.A. for having me on for such a fun segment.

Continue reading “SomeGadgetGuy on Good Day LA – Laptops for the Family!”

HP to Split into Separate Business and Consumer Companies, Laying Off 55,000 Employees

HP logoIn a filing with the SEC, HP today confirmed their intentions to divide their company. They’ll retain the traditional HP name for consumer electronics like Laptops and Printers. A new organization named “Hewlett-Packard Enterprise” will retain their corporate solutions.

It would seem HP has had difficulties in selling off under-performing divisions, and now the company is revisiting the strategy laid out by Leo Apotheker back in 2011 before he was ousted as CEO.

This move also comes with the news that layoffs will increase from the expected 45,000 to 55,000 employees now expected to get cut during this transition.

Current CEO Meg Whitman will make the move to the new Hewlett-Packard  Enterprise, while EVP of Personal  Systems and Printing Dion Weisler will take over as the new head of HP.

 

Editorial: HP’s Catastrophic Mistake – Bringing Windows 7 ‘back by popular demand’…

hp-logoHP has a bold new move to spark customer’s interest in PC’s again. They’re going BACKWARDS! That always works! People love a good nostalgia play!

Announced recently on their site and through an email blitz, HP proudly proclaimed they’re “listening to the consumer” and offering up systems running Microsoft’s last popular OS. It’s a desperate move from a company which has been struggling recently to adapt to a post-PC market. The parallels with Blackberry here are astounding. As BB was caught unprepared for consumers buying pretty smartphones, HP hasn’t been able to figure out their offerings in a world where iPads exist.

Pandering to a media narrative which is all too ready to baselessly criticize Windows 8, HP seems to be banking on the technology “hater” market to pull them out of their slump. You know, that group of people who rail against change and spend TONS of money on things like old laptops. That last sentence was sarcasm by the way. Regardless, I’m sure this will prove a winning strategy for the beleaguered tech firm (also sarcasm).

lenovo 2012-13 salesHere’s the fault in their logic. With all the haterade being dumped on Windows 8, You’d think every manufacturer would be in trouble. As a whole the entire industry is down 15-20% depending on who you ask to track the sales. Unfortunately for those taking glee in Microsoft’s stumble, companies like Asus and Lenovo exist, and both are actually improving their sales during this transition which is unprecedented. Built on the backs of innovative and creative design, Lenovo profits over the 2012/13 fiscal year were up almost 18% over the 2011/12 fiscal year. Embracing Windows 8, and providing consumers innovative products at competitive prices, seems to have worked for Lenovo.

The other major problem with HP’s reasoning is Apple. Continue reading “Editorial: HP’s Catastrophic Mistake – Bringing Windows 7 ‘back by popular demand’…”

New ChromeBooks unveiled at the Intel Developer Forum sporting Haswell

chromebookPeople who track computer sales estimate that nearly a quarter of all computers sold under $300 are ChromeBooks. Google’s browser based cloud OS is eagerly chewing into the market formerly occupied by Windows based netbooks. It’s easy to see why, as ChromeOS runs smoother on lower powered hardware than stripped version of Windows.

Today at the Intel Developer Forum, new ChromeBooks took the stage featuring Intel’s newest processor architecture named Haswell. Haswell takes Intel a significant step forward in offering up powerful mobile solutions which use less power to get work done. They’re already being utilized in the new ultraportable Windows Hybrids from manufacturers Sony, Asus, and Lenovo. Now we’re set to see Haswell parts ship in Chromebooks from Acer, HP, Asus, and Toshiba.

This move should bring a performance boost to the ChromeOS ecosystem as previous ChromeBooks used more tablet-like hardware, but hopefully this increase in power wont come at the expense of battery life.

Hit the Google Chrome Blog for the full scoop!