Talk:Hewlett-Packard/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Requested move 23 December 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: procedural close. This is a suggestion to merge pages, possibly to be followed by renaming of the resultant article. However, the work involved in merging the pages is not going to take place via closure of this request, because merging is not an outcome performed by the closer (see WP:DEMAND). Discussion of whether or not the merge should take place can continue outside the frame of this request. If a merge is performed as the result of consensus, then it may be worth revisiting this issue. However, it would probably be simpler to perform the merge in the other direction rather than worrying too much about where the bulk of the page history is located. Dekimasuよ! 17:15, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

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Hewlett-Packard → HP Inc. – Hewlett-Packard was renamed to Hp Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise was just spun off, just because HPE was spun off doesn't mean the company was split. The company was technically just renamed to HP Inc. HP Inc also lacks a history section and the Hewlett-Packard page is mostly history with other sections that would fit into the scope of HP Inc as they are the same company. Having the pages separate to make it seems like HP has no history and isn't as important of a brand as it is (which is covered in Hewlett-Packard). Also, this article is rather short for such a big tech company and a lot potential content that could be on this article is at Hewlett-Packard. A move is best here as pointed out by Flooded with them hundreds due to this page have more edits and being older. (@Steven (Editor)) – BrandonXLF ^(t@lk) 03:18, 23 December 2018 (UTC) --Relisting. SITH (talk) 12:40, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm also proposing that HP Inc. be merged into this article around the same time as the move takes place. – BrandonXLF ^(t@lk) 06:30, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Presumably that's "merge the contents of HP Inc. here and then rename this page". Guy Harris (talk) 05:10, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Correct. – BrandonXLF ^(t@lk) 06:30, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

@Guy Harris: I'm just wondering now that I updated the request to include the merge, if you wanted to voice your opinion. – BrandonXLF ^(t@lk) 21:43, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm not personally convinced that there now exists a company that could be considered equivalent, from a "what they do" perspective, to the old Hewlett-Packard, given the number of purchases that made the old HP and spinoffs that put various parts of internal developments and "we bought this company and further developed stuff" into different companies - which of the current leaf nodes of the directed acyclic graph that represents HP's history corresponds to "Hewlett-Packard"? The closest thing to the original pre-computer Hewlett-Packard is probably Agilent. IBM's history, for example, is a bit less convoluted; the current IBM's pretty close to the computer-company IBM of the 1950's and 1960's, even given acquisitions and spinoffs (the biggest missing piece is the PC business, spun off to Lenovo).

It sounds as if, in the corporate-law sense, HP, Inc. is "Hewlett-Packard", even though precisely zero of the businesses HP, Inc. is in are businesses that Hewlett-Packard were in prior to the mid-1980's, and I'm not sure at what point either the imaging or personal computer businesses of Hewlett-Packard were large enough that they'd become a major corporation (especially a Fortune 500 company) if spun off. IBM's significantly bigger in revenue and assets than the company that bought their PC business - Lenovo - so they're probably bigger than the fraction of Lenovo that used to be IBM's PC business, so the spinoff of IBM's PC business didn't render them "not IBM" any more. HP Inc., however, has higher revenue, although less in assets, than HPE, so neither of them is clearly "most of Hewlett-Packard after the Agilent spinoff".

So I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other on this issue at this point.

(As for Chrysler, that's just a company that got bought by Daimler-Benz, spun off, and then bought by Fiat; no significant businesses that could be thought of as core businesses were spun off. They just went through name changes due to acquisition, so I don't view that as analogous to H{ewlett-}P{ackard}.) Guy Harris (talk) 22:37, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose malformed request, since the target already exists. Probably it's best to leave it as is, with Hewlett-Packard for the old company and HP Inc. for the new. Dicklyon (talk) 05:30, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

• @Dicklyon: Request is not malformed, and they are the same company. We generally don't have a different page for each time a company changes it name (a good example would be Chrysler), so they should only have one article. I should specify HP Inc. would be merged into this page before (or after) the move, my bad. – BrandonXLF ^(t@lk) 06:30, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

• The revised proposal that includes the suggestion to merge came after my comment. Now at least there's a proposal for what to do with the target. Personally, I still like it better with HP Inc. treated as the modern entity and Hewlett-Packard for the historical one, since there's so little resemblance between them and so much to be said about each. Dicklyon (talk) 17:06, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

• @Dicklyon: If you look at HP Inc., you'll see there's not a lot to say about it. It's been several years, and the article is still TINY for an American tech giant. When people think about HP, they think as both companies as one. The fact that the coma pony was renamed and the server business was spun off, has no effect on basically anyone. Everyone one I know refers to both HP Inc. and Hewlett-Packard as HP, as far as most readers care, they are the same company. – BrandonXLF ^(t@lk) 18:44, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

  I hear you. But to me they're very distinct topics. HP was a giant, and has been splintered until the only thing left is a (giant) PC & printer company. True, not a lot to say about it yet, besides linking its history. Dicklyon (talk) 21:02, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

• Support as mentioned on HP Inc. talk page and above, content from HP Inc. is merged into this article and then moved/renamed to HP Inc. which would keep the long edit history together in one place. The history section could be updated in this article to accommodate history for Hewlett-Packard and HP Inc., e.g. two new subsections like "As Hewlett-Packard" and "As HP Inc." Another thing to mention is that the HP Inc. article doesn't seem to be indexed on Google or Bing for example (the info window that appears on the right rather than list of search results). If you search for "HP" or "Hewlett-Packard", it will come up with a link to this article. If you search for "HPE" or "Hewlett Packard Enterprise", you'll get a link to that article. If you search for "HP Inc.", comes up with a link to this article. It's a shame that it was referred to as "split" rather than "spun off" (or spun off being mentioned in the body of a news article rather than title). I do think the CEO at the time and poor management ruined HP and a company that once had over $100 billion in revenue, gone. Anyway, yeah Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:55, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

• Comment When I did the merge before it was opposed (because a move was preferred to preserve the history of Hewlett-Packard), when you searched "hp" "hp inc" and "Hewlett-Packard" the new HP Inc. article came up as expected, but now if you search "hp" or "hp inc" Hewlett-Packard comes up and when you search "Hewlett-Packard" now, Hewlett Packard Enterprise comes up. So this proposal will likely fix Google search results and stop leading people whoa re looking for the current company to the old one. – BrandonXLF (t@lk) 00:21, 26 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support - for obvious reasons as company wasn't started from scratch. Störm (talk) 10:12, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

• @Störm: What do you mean by keep? You reason is the company wasn't started for strach, so that would imply you support the move, pleas clarify if you support or oppose the move and merge. – BrandonXLF (t@lk) 16:25, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

And let's not do the merge without a consensus first please. Dicklyon (talk) 17:21, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: consensus was achieved in the above discussion, what additional steps do you want me to take? – BrandonXLF (t@lk) 03:33, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Closer noted that "Discussion of whether or not the merge should take place can continue outside the frame of this request. If a merge is performed as the result of consensus, then it may be worth revisiting this issue." I think you should post a merge proposal and restart/continue that discussion in a new section. Dicklyon (talk) 03:50, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Ok. – BrandonXLF (t@lk) 03:52, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Merge proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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@Dicklyon, Guy Harris, Störm, Steven (Editor), and Flooded with them hundreds: I propose that HP Inc. be merged into this article (Hewlett-Packard). We can later move Hewlett-Packard to HP Inc. per the above discussion. The reason we should do this is the same as above, but to reiterate, Hewlett-Packard was RENAMED to Hp Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise was just spun off, just because HPE was spun off doesn't mean the company was split. This means Hewlett-Packard and HP Inc are the same company. HP Inc lacks a history section and the Hewlett-Packard page is mostly history with other sections that would fit into the scope of HP Inc as they are the same company. Having the pages separate to make it seems like HP has no history and isn't as important of a brand as it is (which is covered in Hewlett-Packard). Also, this article is rather short for such a big tech company and a lot potential content that could be on this article is at Hewlett-Packard. I was told by Dekimasu to start a merge proposal to ensure I have proper consensus, so here it is. – BrandonXLF (t@lk) 03:59, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose – It is a legal technicality to say that Hewlett-Packard did not split into HP-Inc. and HPE. Effectively, that's what it did. There's a huge article on Hewlett-Packard because it has a lot of history. The PC/printer company that retains its stock symbol has so little in common with that history that its best treated in its own article, which is small because there's really not much there. Keeping these topics as separate articles seems a lot more sensible, maintainable, balanced, and informative to readers. Dicklyon (talk) 04:10, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

  @Dicklyon: How is it a lot more sensible, matainable, balanced and informative to readers? Having them in one article is more informative because the readers can see the entire history of the company on one article. When most people think about HP they don't think about a enterprise level server company, the think about the printer and computer company. The reason HP Inc. is small is because Hewlett-Packard is basically a giant history article for it. Take AOL, we don't have a separate article for America Online, we only have the AOL article. Companies change their name and split and merge all the time, but that doesn't mean we should have a article for each time a company does a split/merge/rename, article should focus on the company as a topic as well. – BrandonXLF (t@lk) 04:22, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

  As the HP Inc. article says, It was formed on November 1, 2015, renamed from the personal computer and printer divisions of the original Hewlett-Packard Company, with its enterprise products and services businesses becoming Hewlett Packard Enterprise. The HP Inc. article can expand if it ever does anything interesting. I think that when most people hear Hewlett-Packard, they think of the innovative company that Bill and Dave built that was a major force in the development of Silicon Valley, not the shell that Carly left behind. Dicklyon (talk) 04:30, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

  If somebody thinks Hewlett-Packard is a PC and printer company, I'd consider one of the purposes of this article to, at least, dispel the notion that it has never been anything but that. I'd prefer that anybody who reads the resulting article realize that Hewlett-Packard has been in many businesses, including instrumentation, minicomputers, business computers, workstations, servers, PCs, and printers. I'm not sure what the right way to make it clear, if we merge Hewlett-Packard with HP Inc., that the article is not about a PC and printer company, it's about a company that's had a long history, and that the company named "HP Inc." represents only some of the later parts of that company. Guy Harris (talk) 04:52, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose - For the reasons stated by Dicklyon. The HP Inc. that exists today is a mere shadow of the greatness that was once Hewlett-Packard. At its peak, the old HP was a vast conglomerate that could provide a business with nearly all computer-related equipment and services in one contract. Today a startup has to go to three to five different companies to obtain the same things. --Coolcaesar (talk) 04:28, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

• @Coolcaesar: So the company down-scaled? That still doesn't warrant for two different articles, a good example is AOL and America Online, despite MAJOR down scaling and re-branding, they share one article. – BrandonXLF (t@lk) 04:33, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

  See WP:OTHERCONTENT, WP:CONTENTAGE, WP:NODEADLINE, WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY. Just because some article over there has done something questionable and hasn't (yet) been re-done to be more helpful to readers doesn't mean other articles must follow the same pattern. The fact is that corporate relationships are complicated these days, and this often requires complicated article crafting. It affects many topic areas (e.g. publishing companies and brands; the latter often change hands, as to corporate ownership, without significantly changing names, and sometimes the original parent company retains a similar name). It's also consistent with our treatment of nation-states with complicated histories. I also have to oppose. The old Hewlett-Packard clearly did split into two companies, then [at least] four, so these should not be merged articles. We have disambiguation hatnotes for a reason.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:00, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

• Support – It is more than just a legal technicality that they are the same. Not only is HP Inc. the same legal entity as the former Hewlett-Packard company, but anecdotal, most people seem to consider it to be the same thing. Despite any shift in direction, scope, or market share, HP Inc. builds on the legacy of Hewlett-Packard. Not only has HP Inc. inherited much of Hewlett-Packard's employees, intellectual property, and product lines, but it maintains its brand recognition and trademarks, using the same exact logo as before. This is definitely much more than a legal technicality! BrandonXLF's AOL and America Online example is not an outlier. Consider Apple Inc. vs. Apple Computer, Inc. -- Apple in it's current form led by Tim Cook is hardly the same company it was in the 1970s and 80s under Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, but what makes it the same company is its continuity.

  @Dicklyon:, @Coolcaesar:, and @Guy Harris:, I believe your arguments are largely based on opinion and emotion. Dicklyon, you say Hewlett-Packard was an innovative company while implying HP Inc. has not yet done anything interesting and you believe it is a "shell that Carly left behind". That sounds like you disapprove of HP's direction and wish to preserve the significance of Hewlett-Packard. Merging the two articles will not diminish Hewlett-Packard's legacy. Coolcaesar, your statement that "The HP Inc. that exists today is a mere shadow of the greatness that was once Hewlett-Packard" also seems to be more of an emotional grudge.

  Lastly, the two articles are incomplete without each other. They are like two pieces of the puzzle. As a practical matter, merging the two makes it easier for readers to navigate and get the whole picture of HP.

  --Alex Rosenberg (talk) 01:44, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

"Anecdotally" (which I presume is what you meant by "anecdotal") may just mean you hang around with people who use printers and PCs rather than business/enterprise computers (or oscilloscopes and logic analyzers, or medical equipment). Yes, HP Inc. is the company that got the consumer/small office product lines of Hewlett-Packard, so more people are familiar with those products than are familiar with the "enterprise" products that went to HPE, but that doesn't inherently make HP Inc. any more the successor to Hewlett-Packard than HPE.

Several companies "[have] inherited much of Hewlett-Packard's employees, intellectual property, and product lines"; what makes the company that inherited the PC and printer product lines and the intellectual property that went along with them, but not the company that inherited the HP-UX/Itanium/business computer product lines and the intellectual property that went along with them, "the same thing" as the original Hewlett-Packard? (And then there's the company that inherited the instrumentation product lines....) This chart of HPE employees in 2015, 2016, and 2017 shows more HPE employees post-split than this chart of Hewlett-Packard and HP Inc. employees from 2001 to 2017 shows HP Inc. employees post-split. According to the infoboxes on Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Inc., HP Inc. has slightly fewer employees than HPE, about twice the revenue of HPE for 2018, 5x the operating income of HPE for 2017, about 6x the net income of HPE for 2017, a little more than half the assets of HPE for 2017, and, unlike HPE, has negative equity for 2017, for what that's worth.

And, as for Apple, they're still in the business of making desktop personal computers, even though they've entered several other businesses since the 1970's; HP Inc. is not in any of the businesses that Hewlett-Packard was in during the 1970's, unless you consider the desk calculator business to be the same business as the x86 PC business.

And in what way are your arguments based on anything other than opinion and emotion? The only factual points you cite that make HP Inc. different from HPE (or Agilent, for that matter) are the legal entity point and logo points; HP Inc. doesn't have brand recognition in the "enterprise UNIX server" business as they're not in that business, and I don't think they retained the trademarks on, for example, "HP-UX" or "Integrity". (And which of the two companies got the words "Hewlett" and "Packard" in their brand?) Guy Harris (talk) 03:12, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

• Support – same reason as I mentioned above Steven (Editor) (talk) 18:42, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

• Support as nominator. – BrandonXLF (t@lk) 02:46, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose - Reasons for merging HP Inc and HP are the same and arguably no stronger than reasons for merging Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP. Any merger should recombine all three.Dgennetten (talk) 21:28, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

• Support - If HP company made a brand with a similar name why wouldn't be just a mention rather than waste an entire humongous article over it? Alexceltare2 (talk) 20:55, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move 9 September 2019

HP should redirect to Hewlett-Packard while the disambiguation is HP (disambiguation) because the biggest, and also, PRIMARY use of HP is obviously Hewlett-Packard (more than 98% of search terms for HP refer to Hewlett-Packard). Barracuda41 (talk) 22:48, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Presumably you meant to put that comment on Talk:HP. Guy Harris (talk) 00:41, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

As said in the previous comment this should be at Talk:HP, but I'm pretty sure HP most commonly refers to HP Inc.. – BrandonXLF (t@lk) 00:47, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

(Renaming proposal) Rename original HP and new HP as (1939-2015) and (2015-present)

These two are incarnations of each other that need some type of change. I'm simply requesting this. Sirhewlett (talk) 14:34, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Is the company named "HP Inc." the "successor" to or the "second incarnation of" the company named "Hewlett-Packard" in anything other than a legal sense? The original part of Hewlett-Packard - the instrumentation company - ended up getting spun off as part of Agilent, leaving behind the information technology part. The information technology part was eventually split into HP Inc. and HPE; what characteristics of the product lines that each company got would render HP Inc. the successor to, or the later incarnation of, the Hewlett-Packard that existed before the split? Guy Harris (talk) 06:22, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I would probably say second incarnation, but I might be wrong from your explanation. Sirhewlett (talk) 00:56, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps Is the company named "HP Inc." the "successor" to or the "second incarnation of" the company named "Hewlett-Packard" was not stated clearly enough - it's not a "which do you prefer?" question, it's part of a "regardless of which one you might prefer, is either one valid?" qutestion. I.e., I'm not asking whether "successor" or "second incarnation of" is the phrase to use, I'm asking whether:

• If you prefer "successor", is HP Inc. a successor to Hewlett-Packard in anything other than in the way the split of Hewlett-Packard was structured

and

• If you prefer "second incarnation of", is HP Inc. the second incarnation of Hewlett-Packard in anything other than in the way the split of Hewlett-Packard was structured? Guy Harris (talk) 03:15, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose "Hewlett-Packard" has been disolved, then two companies were created (HP Inc. And HPE). Although it is considered as the "successor" of the older one, it is a new company wich just held the branding, the end-user business, and the stock ID from the older one. --Amitie 10g (talk) 00:23, 17 March 2023 (UTC)