HP Inc loves China – but wants to reduce the risks it presents

HP Inc loves China and wants to keep making and designing products there, but also loves the idea of diversifying its operations to other countries in case geopolitics becomes a problem. That's the gist of a Thursday post by chief supply chain officer Ernest Nicolas, titled "Transforming and Optimizing Supply Chains." The …

[Pascal Monett]

"we continue to grow in China and with China"

As long as Beijing accepts our presence and can continue pilfering our IP with impunity.

You have engineering done in China ? Consider yourself lucky that there is not a Chinese company producing near-exact replicas of your stuff for the local market.

China is actively stealing every secret it can, and you are actually counting on Chinese engineers in China to create your stuff ? Talk about having the chicken pen guarded by the fox . . .

[bud-weis-er]

Re: "we continue to grow in China and with China"

Totally agree. I'm a bit cynical about it to be honest, it's like someone buying a house near an airport then complaining about the planes - err, yeah, that was going to happen.

Everyone knows what happens when you play in China and very, very few come out of it happy. I think the West pulled its pants down for years over this, and ignored what was happening. Some of it fuelled by that 80s/90s/00s garbage of "China can only copy". Governments obviously thought that "democracy and the free market will prevail".

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: "we continue to grow in China and with China"

Government thinking was more likely "exporting production keeps inflation down so we can go into the next election with really low interest rates and voters like that".

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "we continue to grow in China and with China"

Government was also thinking "moving production offshore and letting our industry close down reduces the UK's carbon footprint".

[StrangerHereMyself]

Re: "we continue to grow in China and with China"

Most Western companies are just plain lazy. They buy stuff from Chinese manufacturers and paste their logo onto it and sell it. Management says this saves costs by not having to hire expensive engineers. They want to focus on marketing and getting their $100 million bonuses.

HP still designs and makes some of its stuff (printers mostly) but they've only sold rebadged Quanta laptops and PC's for decades now. If Taiwan goes down so does HP's PC business.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "we continue to grow in China and with China"

"HP still designs and makes some of its stuff (printers mostly)"

And look at what a POS modern day HP printers are.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Re: "we continue to grow in China and with China"

I own a decade old Color LaserJet All-in-One and it works just fine under Linux Mint. The software is a bit slow and clunky IMHO. It uses a full blown Linux stack and it takes a while to start up.

The crappy printers are mostly ink-jet ones. I therefore recommend always buying a laser printer.

[O'Reg Inalsin]

Re: "we continue to grow in China and with China"

Of course industrial espionage is real - but I'm not so sure what you are describing is that. US MBAs outsourcing engineering to China is actually selling the chickens in return for a 7/8 reduction in engineer personnel costs, not to mention reducing the risks of US senior engineers rising in company ahead of MBAs. It happens all the time in the US - personnel quit and legally found new rival companies, sometimes taking customers with them. The guilt lies squarely with those doing the outsourcing.

[Mark Exclamation]

FFS! Why can't the West just bring manufacturing back home? It does mean they'll make a couple of $million less profit, but... oh wait, answered my own question. After all, bonuses and short-term profit are more important than long-term business.