Apotheker's reign causes HP's profits to plummet

MAKER OF EXPENSIVE PRINTER INK HP has posted disappointing financial results.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a firm that has been spinning between dramatic decisions for the last year, HP posted a drop in net income of 91 per cent in its fourth quarter.

New CEO Meg Whitman admitted during a conference call with analysts that the last year had not been a great one. "We confused customers, employees, shareholders and partners on one fundamental question," she said, according to our sister IT news web site V3.co.uk, "what is HP?"

What it is, at least for now, is a company with some falling revenues and headline grabbing business decisions. Going forward the firm will be more conservative, apparently. "We need to put our heads down, stay out of the news cycle and reduce the drama here," Whitman added.

HP investors were not just told bad news however, and the company did increase revenues in some areas during its fourth quarter. Services revenue grew by two per cent to $9.3bn, technology services and application services revenue grew by three per cent and two per cent, respectively, and outsourcing revenue grew by one per cent. The standout, software revenue grew by 28 per cent.

The personal systems group, known outside of HP as the PC business, declined by two per cent in the quarter, perhaps because HP had suggested that it would drop the business, while printer and imaging revenues dropped by 10 per cent.

Perhaps the bleakest note in its financial results was the $3.3bn punch in the face that HP took for winding down WebOS. µ