HP to cut 27,000 jobs

[TheWraith]

3. HP has been in a spiral for years.

In large part because they can't diversify, and they can't do their core business very well. They spent a fortune to buy out Palm Inc, which was in a death spiral of its own, then another fortune trying to build and push a line of HP smartphones and tablets. Not necessarily bad hardware, mind you, but a completely tone-deaf move in trying to compete with the platform juggernauts of Android and iOS. So they ended up having to fire-sale a few hundred million dollars worth of hardware because it wouldn't sell any other way. Meanwhile, their PC side is churning out functional but unremarkable computers, which don't really do anything to distinguish themselves or add value for the customer. If they could turn things around and show the customers the benefits of hardware specialization, say a PC which does something/several things BETTER than tablets, then they'd have a better shot.