CONFUSION AROUND HP CAUSING CUSTOMERS TO FLEE

The ongoing confusion over HP's future plans is causing customers to abandon ship, according to reports. The company has been sending out mixed messages since its shock announcement to quit the PC business, as well as stop production of its webOS TouchPad tablet. It makes you wonder what the strategy really is and where they are going.

HP's dithering is already causing customers to look elsewhere, according to the Wall Street Journal. The paper cited engineering company Fluor, which generally spends $25 million a year on new hardware and software, and was planning to buy high-end design computers and a fleet of tablets from HP. "I've put that all on hold and won't buy from HP,” said Fluor chief information officer Ray Barnard in the report. "It appears that they're lost right now."

And Fluor was not alone, with the WSJ also citing education customers with doubts over spending money with the world's largest PC manufacturer, amid confusion over its plans and abrupt announcements.
"This appears to just come out of the blue without a really good explanation," Frank Cervone, a vice chancellor for information services at Purdue University, told the paper. "It makes you wonder what the strategy really is and where it is going."