惠普风光不再，但复兴希望犹存

    2005年，卡罗尔•卢米斯为《财富》杂志(Fortune)撰写了一篇惠普公司(HP)首席执行官卡莉•菲奥莉娜收购康柏公司(Compaq)的计划陷于困境的详尽报道。在这篇堪称其代表作的文章中，她援引了一位华尔街分析师的预测：惠普终有一日会被拆分。

    这位名叫史蒂芬•米卢诺维奇的分析师一度离开研究领域。但他如今又回来了。目前，米卢诺维奇供职于瑞银集团(UBS)，负责追踪企业级科技公司，也就是那些将技术卖给其他公司，而不是消费者的公司。他仍然密切注意惠普的动向。该公司上周宣布了一项分拆计划：惠普将一分为二，一个是专注从事消费PC和打印机业务的惠普公司(HP Inc)，另一个是从事企业级硬件和软件业务的惠普企业公司(Hewlett-Packard Enterprise)。

    企业分拆通常能够赢得一片喝彩声，但这一次，各方的反映一直不温不火。詹姆斯•斯图尔特上周末发表于《纽约时报》(The New York Times)的文章，总体上看淡这两家公司的发展前景。在每周更新一次的博客《周一观察》(Monday Note)中，让-路易斯•盖瑟从历史的角度，对惠普的文化进行了一番精彩评论，声称这家公司如今是一个“疲惫的混合体”

    米卢诺维奇则发现了一些让他对惠普保持谨慎乐观的原因。上周，我来到他的纽约办公室。以下是经过编辑的对话内容：

    我在拆分宣布的当天写了一篇文章，说惠普不再是一家举足轻重的公司，至少没有过去那般重要。你同意吗？

    惠普的招牌显然有点褪色。它已经不是过去那个惠普了。但惠普仍然是世界上最大的消费计算公司之一。当然目前苹果(Apple)已经超越它了。不过，惠普距离全球头号PC厂商的位置非常接近。它依然是一家卓越的打印机公司。尽管它在企业级市场名声渐暗，曾经拥有的创新光环早已逝去。但我不会说，惠普现在无足轻重。我认为，这种看法有点夸张了。

    说说你2005年的预测。

    我当时预测说，打印机业务将从PC业务中剥离。我一直非常信奉“聚焦”(focus)。它是影响企业发展的最强大的因素。我们总是觉得，惠普要想同时成为一流的消费技术和企业技术公司，的确很有难度。微软(Microsoft)显然也有过类似的问题。就惠普的情况而言，没有一劳永逸的高招。该公司目前还没有收缩任何一个部门。但这不利于激励“聚焦”。我认为他们早在几年前就该做这件事了。

    正如你所说，惠普并没有把打印机和PC业务分离开来，这意味着早年收购的康柏资产基本上原封未动。

    In 2005, when Carol Loomis wrote one of her signature, exhaustive articles for Fortune, this one about Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina’s troubled acquisition of Compaq, she quoted a Wall Street analyst who predicted that HP HP -5.89% would one day be split up.

    That analyst, Steven Milunovich, left the research business for a time. But he’s back at it again, now working at UBS, where he covers enterprise technology companies—that is, companies that sell technology to other companies as opposed to consumers. Milunovich is still paying careful attention to HP, which announced last week that it is splitting its consumer PC and printer businesses (to be called HP Inc) from its enterprise hardware and software lines (to be known as Hewlett-Packard Enterprise).

    Reaction to the spin-off, beyond general praise for spin-offs, has been tepid. Writing in The New York Times over the weekend, James Stewart walks through HP’s generally weak prospects on both sides of its house. In his weekly “Monday Note,” Jean-Louis Gassée provides outstanding historical commentary on HP’s culture, calling the company today a “tired conglomeration.”

    As for Milunovich, he finds some reasons for guarded optimism about HP. I reached him at his desk in New York last week. Below is an edited version of our conversation.

    I wrote in an essay on the day the split was announced that HP didn’t much matter anymore, at least not the way it used to. Do you agree?

    HP’s obviously lost a lot of luster. It’s not the company it once was. But it is one of the largest consumer computing companies. Clearly Apple AAPL -0.91% has surpassed it. But HP is very close to being the number-one PC company globally. They are the premier printing company. Where they have faded is on the enterprise side, and the innovation halo they once had is long gone. But I wouldn’t say it doesn’t matter. I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration.

    Talk about your 2005 prediction.

    I apparently predicted that printers would be peeled off from PCs. I’ve always been a big believer in focus. It’s the most powerful factor in business. In the case of HP we always felt it was difficult being the premier consumer and enterprise company. Microsoft MSFT -0.86% clearly has had similar issues. In HP’s case there’s no silver bullet. No one unit is being held back. But it doesn’t encourage focus. I would argue that they should have done this years ago.

    As you note, HP isn’t separating printers and PCs, meaning the Compaq acquisition is remaining somewhat intact.