积极的并购交易可以让一家公司进入新的市场，进一步壮大它的实力。当然，它也可能让这家公司焦头烂额地应对复杂的IT整合，一轮又一轮的裁员，以及数十亿美元的资产减记，结果反而消耗了实力。不幸的是，惠普的命运正是第二种情况。到2012年11月，惠普股价已跌至11.35美元，在25个月内累计下跌了79%。同期，标准普尔500指数却上涨了18%。

    惠特曼正是在惠普股价自由落体之际闪亮登场，在2011年成为惠普CEO。但她已经注定要面对更多的裁员和减记，特别是在富有争议的Autonomy公司收购交易之后。但是惠普股价从去年11月开始反弹，表明她带领惠普走出风暴中心、进入平静水域的努力发生了作用。

    上个月，惠普股价攀升至27.78美元，较去年秋季低点回升了145%。接下来，这家公司公布了最新的业绩报告。惠普公布收益报告后，它的股价在几小时内下跌13%，回落到每股22美元。主要是因为最新业绩报告使得市场质疑这家公司是否真的能够华丽转身，尽管惠特曼已经做出许多努力。此后三周内，惠普股价一直保持在每股22美元左右。

    股价下跌与惠普上一季度的业绩表现没什么关系：收入及盈利均符合华尔街分析师业已悲观的预期。个人电脑业务收入下滑了11%，打印机业务收入（惠普长期以来的摇钱树）下滑了4%，企业业务收入下降了9%，金融服务收入降了6%。唯一的亮点是惠普的软件业务，它的收入增长1%来到了9.82亿美元，占惠普总收入的3.6%。

    但这一切均在预期之内。传统个人电脑业务的下滑以及企业在IT服务上的支出停滞拖累了惠普等高科技巨头。但真正导致股价大跌的原因是惠普对未来的预期——无关复苏的东西。惠特曼在电话会议上说了这样一番话：

    “上个季度服务器市场的增长率出现下降。个人电脑市场企稳的程度不及我的预期。我预期的企稳还需要继续等待。最后，企业服务今年表现不错，今年这项业务收入流失进一步放缓……”

    这些让分析师们惊慌失措。花旗集团（Citigroup）担心，惠普的“电话会议揭示了该公司面临的一些挑战”。Needham & Co.公司指出，此前就表示过对惠普能否扭转颓势的怀疑，“围绕惠普的超级乐观情绪终于开始消退了。”还有分析师因为惠普2014年收入无增长的前景感到大惊失措，而企业部门管理层变动则让另一些分析师大跌眼镜。惠普一直希望企业部门成为一个增长点。

    过去一个月内发生的事已经描绘出一种场景：惠普不仅仅是在艰难时期坠落的硅谷先驱，而且即使未来几年也可能没希望重振雄风了。鉴于它的员工总数超过33万人，这样的情景发人深省。惠普被剔除道琼斯指数后还将生存下去。但如果作为硅谷标志性企业的身份也被剥夺，它的境遇也许会进一步恶化。（财富中文网）

    译者：默默

    Aggressive M&A can strengthen a company by broadening its reach into new markets. Or it can deplete its strength by distracting the company with complex IT integration, endless rounds of layoffs, and billions of dollars in write-downs. HP's fate ended up being the latter. By November 2012, its stock had fallen to $11.35 a share, a decline of 79% over 25 months. During that same period, the S&P 500 rose 18%.

    Whitman came in during the middle of that freefall, becoming HP's CEO in 2011. She had her work cut out for her: more layoffs and writedowns, particularly in the wake of the controversial Autonomy deal. But starting last November, the stock rallied, suggesting that her efforts to steer HP out of the storm and into calmer waters was actually working.

    HP's stock reached as high as $27.78 last month, an increase of 145% from its low point last fall. Then came its most recent financial report. The stock dropped 13% to $22 a share in a matter of hours after HP posted its earnings, largely because the numbers raised questions about whether this company could ever be turned around, even with the work that Whitman has done. The stock has stayed around $22 a share in the three weeks since then.

    The reason has nothing to do with HP's last quarter: Revenue and earnings came in line with Wall Street's expectations, which were grim ones. PC revenue fell 11%, printer revenue (long HP's cash cow) fell 4%, enterprise business fell 9%, and financial services fell 6%. The only bright spot was HP's software, which saw revenue rise 1% to $982 million, or 3.6% of HP's total revenue.

    All that was expected. The fall of the old-school PC and the stagnant spending by companies on IT services have hurt HP and other tech giants. The killer was what HP saw ahead, which was not the stuff of recovery. In the conference call, Whitman said things like this:

    "The server market growth rates have come down in the last quarter. The PC market has not stabilized as much as I had anticipated it would. That stabilization is yet to occur. Then finally, Enterprise Services, which is good for this year is the revenues running off more slowly this year ..."

    Analysts kind of freaked. Citigroup fretted that its "conference call unveiled several challenges." Needham & Co., noting its earlier skepticism in a turnaround, said "euphoria is finally wearing off." Others were taken aback about the prospect of no revenue growth in 2014 and still others by the management changes in the enterprise division, an area that HP long hoped would be a growth area.

    The past month has painted a picture where HP is not only a Silicon Valley pioneer that has fallen on hard times, but one where a turnaround may in fact be impossible even in the next few years. Given it employs well over 330,000 people, that's a sobering scenario. HP will survive being jettisoned from the Dow. It may fare less well if it also slips from being an icon of Silicon Valley.

    如果要让你来当家，你会怎样重振惠普（Hewlett-Packard）？

    过去约十年的时间里，这是许多技术过硬、经验丰富的CEO们不得不回答的一道难题，但他们大多给出了错误的答案。但对于惠普现任CEO梅格•惠特曼以及她的下属而言，这是一个非常现实的问题。

    在解决这个问题上，惠特曼曾经是最接近成功的人。然而，最近的证据表明她也在节节败退。值得注意的是，惠普将于本月被剔除出道琼斯工业平均指数，因为将要取代它的Visa公司似乎是代表大型高科技企业的更好选择。1997年，惠普与沃尔玛（Wal - Mart）、旅行者公司（Travelers）以及强生公司（Johnson & Johnson）一道被纳为道琼斯指数成份股。而如今惠普将是这几个公司中第一个被剔除出道指的巨头。

    惠普被剔除道指的部分原因在于高科技公司似乎比零售、保险或医疗类企业老化的速度更快。但更主要的原因在于，惠普似乎已经在惠特曼或任何人得以拯救这家公司之前陷入了不可逆转的颓势。果真如此，那么现实将是所有惠普人都不愿听到的：认命服老，接受长江后浪推前浪的现实。

    惠特曼在接受媒体采访时总喜欢反问：一家现金流数十亿美元、收入数千亿美元的公司怎么可能落伍？但答案就藏在惠普的历史中。1999年，在路•普拉特结束精彩的六年半惠普CEO生涯（在此期间惠普股价上涨700%，道指同期上涨247%）离任后，卡莉•菲奥莉娜接任，随后收购了康柏公司（Compaq），准备让惠普迎接21世纪的大好前程。可惜的是，菲奥莉娜预见的新世纪和我们如今所处的、现实中的新世纪相去甚远，因为康柏公司生产的电脑已经不再那么举足轻重。

    后来马克•赫德开始执掌惠普。2005年，惠普在他的领导下发起一系列并购交易，这个策略在几年内都发挥了功效。2010年4月，惠普公司股价升至54.75美元，因赫德通过几笔大胆的收购交易成功将惠普打造成了一家IT服务巨头。

    2010年4月，惠普的股价还在每股55美元附近。而之前赫德已经在2008年作价139亿美元收购了EDS公司，此前也大手笔收购了Opsware公司（16亿美元）和Mercury Interactive公司（45亿美元）。

    2010年4月，赫德完成一项交易（27亿美元收购3Com公司），还宣布了另一项新交易（12亿美元收购Palm公司）。赫德在这些大型交易上共斥资240亿美元，此外还花费数十亿美元收购其他较小的公司。他离任后，他的继任者（惠特曼之前的继任者）——尤其是李艾科——继续斥巨资收购大型公司，包括：23.5亿美元收购3Par公司以及110亿美元收购Autonomy公司。

    What would you do if it fell to you to turn around Hewlett-Packard (HPQ)?

    It's a bit of a trick question that a number of skilled and experienced CEOs have had to answer in the past decade or so, and most of them came up with the wrong answers. But it's a very real question for Meg Whitman, HP's current CEO, and for everyone who works for her.

    No one has come closer than Whitman to cracking that corporate koan. Yet recent evidence suggests she's losing ground. Notably, HP is being dropped from the Dow Jones Industrial Average this month, since Visa (V) appears to be a better proxy for big tech. HP joined the Dow as part of the Class of 1997, along with Wal-Mart (WMT), Travelers (TRV), and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ). It is the first dropout of that class.

    Part of HP's Dow exit is because tech companies seem to age faster than retail, insurance, or health care companies. But more of it is because HP seems to have slid into an irreversible decline even before Whitman -- or anyone -- could have saved the company. If that's the case, the reality is what no one at HP wants to hear: Lie down on the cold cotton sheets and enter corporate dotage, the future belongs to the generations that followed you.

    Whitman in interviews likes to ask how a company generating billions in cash and hundreds of billions in revenue could be falling behind. The answer lies in HP's history. In 1999, after Lew Platt stepped down after an impressive six-and-a-half-year run (HP's stock rose 700% vs. the Dow's 247% gain), Carly Fiorina stepped in and bought Compaq to prepare HP for the 21st century. Only Fiorina's new century wasn't the one we live in now, where the PCs Compaq made are becoming less relevant.

    Enter Mark Hurd. In 2005, he embarked on a series of aggressive purchases, a strategy that worked for several years. In April 2010, HP's stock traded as high as $54.75 a share, thanks to Hurd's campaign to remake HP into an IT-services powerhouse through multiple bold acquisitions.

    Back in April 2010, HP's stock was treading near $55 a share. Hurd had already bought EDS for $13.9 billion in 2008, following big-ticket deals like Opsware ($1.6 billion) and Mercury Interactive ($4.5 billion).

    That month, Hurd closed one deal (3Com for $2.7 billion) and announced another (Palm for $1.2 billion). Hurd spent $24 billion on those major deals plus billions more on other, smaller buys. After he left, his pre-Whitman successors -- notably Léo Apotheker -- spent yet more on big-ticket companies: $2.35 billion on 3Par and, infamously, $11 billion on Autonomy.

    积极的并购交易可以让一家公司进入新的市场，进一步壮大它的实力。当然，它也可能让这家公司焦头烂额地应对复杂的IT整合，一轮又一轮的裁员，以及数十亿美元的资产减记，结果反而消耗了实力。不幸的是，惠普的命运正是第二种情况。到2012年11月，惠普股价已跌至11.35美元，在25个月内累计下跌了79%。同期，标准普尔500指数却上涨了18%。

    惠特曼正是在惠普股价自由落体之际闪亮登场，在2011年成为惠普CEO。但她已经注定要面对更多的裁员和减记，特别是在富有争议的Autonomy公司收购交易之后。但是惠普股价从去年11月开始反弹，表明她带领惠普走出风暴中心、进入平静水域的努力发生了作用。

    上个月，惠普股价攀升至27.78美元，较去年秋季低点回升了145%。接下来，这家公司公布了最新的业绩报告。惠普公布收益报告后，它的股价在几小时内下跌13%，回落到每股22美元。主要是因为最新业绩报告使得市场质疑这家公司是否真的能够华丽转身，尽管惠特曼已经做出许多努力。此后三周内，惠普股价一直保持在每股22美元左右。

    股价下跌与惠普上一季度的业绩表现没什么关系：收入及盈利均符合华尔街分析师业已悲观的预期。个人电脑业务收入下滑了11%，打印机业务收入（惠普长期以来的摇钱树）下滑了4%，企业业务收入下降了9%，金融服务收入降了6%。唯一的亮点是惠普的软件业务，它的收入增长1%来到了9.82亿美元，占惠普总收入的3.6%。

    但这一切均在预期之内。传统个人电脑业务的下滑以及企业在IT服务上的支出停滞拖累了惠普等高科技巨头。但真正导致股价大跌的原因是惠普对未来的预期——无关复苏的东西。惠特曼在电话会议上说了这样一番话：

    “上个季度服务器市场的增长率出现下降。个人电脑市场企稳的程度不及我的预期。我预期的企稳还需要继续等待。最后，企业服务今年表现不错，今年这项业务收入流失进一步放缓……”

    这些让分析师们惊慌失措。花旗集团（Citigroup）担心，惠普的“电话会议揭示了该公司面临的一些挑战”。Needham & Co.公司指出，此前就表示过对惠普能否扭转颓势的怀疑，“围绕惠普的超级乐观情绪终于开始消退了。”还有分析师因为惠普2014年收入无增长的前景感到大惊失措，而企业部门管理层变动则让另一些分析师大跌眼镜。惠普一直希望企业部门成为一个增长点。

    过去一个月内发生的事已经描绘出一种场景：惠普不仅仅是在艰难时期坠落的硅谷先驱，而且即使未来几年也可能没希望重振雄风了。鉴于它的员工总数超过33万人，这样的情景发人深省。惠普被剔除道琼斯指数后还将生存下去。但如果作为硅谷标志性企业的身份也被剥夺，它的境遇也许会进一步恶化。（财富中文网）

    译者：默默