HP takes hard line with partners

Beyond the pink slips that will soon be landing in employees hands, there is another part of the HP strategy for maximum profitability afoot.

Consider this quote from HP Chief Executive Mark Hurd:

" 'We really like partners that are very focused on HP,' Hurd said during a conference call Tuesday. 'It doesn't mean that they are exclusively focused on HP, but when we go to market together, they are focused on what we call the attach rate and that we enlarge our content of product.' "

So if you go to buy HP products in the future expect to have other, perhaps unwanted, items pushed at you. I don't hear "great package deals" as part of this focus, but maybe they will be. I don't know at this point.

What I do know is that I'm personally turned off by such tactics. However, unless the implementation is so agressive as to be egregious, it can work. For various reasons, mostly having to do with software support for HP hardware, I'm not a big HP fan. So as I gently poo-poo Hurd's strategy, consider the source.