HP talks up the downturn

I was at a breakfast briefing this morning with HP and it was interesting to hear such a large player in the market talking about the downturn and the effects it is having on its own business.

The vendor posted a 13 per cent drop in profit recently, but saw turnover increase by one per cent for its first quarter of 2009.

Firms like HP will always come through any difficult patches because of their sheer size and scale, but that doesn't mean to say it is not monitoring its every move very carefully.

It also talked openly about walking away from what it calls 'suicidal' deals, regardless of the size, if the pricing terms were too difficult to begin with, both on the product side and the services side. There is no point taking business on just for the sake of it, the vendor said.

Good news for our readers is that the channel is as important as ever to HP and the vendor intends to do all it can to help partners succeed.

However I was even more pleased to speak with one executive afterwards and hear him back up my theory about the national press causing unnecessary doom and gloom with their constant escalation of the economic crisis.

Breakfast was very nice as well!