The business-hardware move contrasts sharply with HP's plans for the consumer space, where it intends to keep both brands as long as it can. "We are never going to give this up," Gruzen said. "On the consumer side, it's still a full red-box Presario," he said, referring to the distinctive packaging and design historically used for Compaq products. Gruzen noted that HP has been using an alternating promotional strategy for notebooks at US retailers: One week, HP models are more heavily pushed, the next week, Compaq models receive greater incentives. That leads to big shifts in market share from week to week, but has helped the two brands combined to account for more than half of all recent notebook sales, Gruzen said. Plus, he said, PC stores appreciate the fluctuations. "What retailers hate is staleness," he said. Meanwhile, HP is also moving ahead with one of its key strategies, an initiative known as "Radically Simple, Better Together". In the push, HP tells consumers that they get a better computing experience if they go with HP for more than one type of tech gear, such a notebook and a printer. One of the first tangible signs of the effort is a companywide move to embrace the postage-stamp-size Secure Digital memory format. By ensuring the same form of removable memory is used in HP cameras, notebooks and printers, customers will be more easily able to move a picture from an HP camera to an iPaq handheld, for example. HP is also offering a business twist on the same idea: The new HP Compaq notebook features a button that gives one-touch control of an HP projector.
See the Hardware News Section for the latest update on everything from MP3 players and PDAs to supercomputing.
Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.
