News Roundup: Bigger Dell, smaller HPE, thinner iPhone

Posted by Martin Veitch
on September 09 2016

Dell joins up with EMC; HP decouples from software

It took a while (about 11 months in total) but Dell and EMC finally tied the knot, closing a huge deal that left business journalists the world over struggling to write something original about the combination. Dell tried to fill the gap with a new logo and a fancy video while Bloomberg opted for that old chestnut of resulting job cuts - even if the “at least” 2,000 exits would be way under two per cent of the total workforce.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise meanwhile headed in the other direction, spinning out its “non-core” software businesses to UK firm Micro Focus and thus making the one-time icon of the UK software scene a UK concern once again. Sort of. HP had already consciously uncoupled its enterprise services to CSC and other software to Open Text.

Apple knows jack

Under Steve Jobs, Apple had an uncanny knack for keeping its news under wraps but under Tim Cook the company seems to have lost its discretion and, some say, its innovation chops. We all knew that the headphone jack was going as part of Cupertino’s ongoing quest to get rid of Not Invented Here technology and the iPhone 7 generally underwhelmed. There was a predictable chorus of clickbait articles lamenting Apple’s lost R&D prowess with even the New York Times joining in. As for the jack it went from world’s most boring orifice to front-page news with a spike, shortly to return to obscurity, surely. Cook might have got away with it but lost a zillion credibility points by Corden-ing off his journey to the launch event. This must have been the most insanely grating corporate embrace of popular culture since… ooh, pre-installing U2 on devices?

3D printing is back (but don’t get that old box out of the garage)

GE is buying into 3D printing but it’s not the kind that caused a big kerfuffle before dying behind a rock a few years ago. The ability to produce waxy landfill tchotchkes was big (with the analysts and media) but GE is more interested in making big industrial parts via a couple of purchases. The consumer version of 3D output still has an erratic pulse.

We never knew you cared

Finally, a report was issued on the relative positions the US presidential candidates are taking on technology, the big surprise being that it took up more space than a postal stamp.