what industry is hewlett packard in?

[Huckit Corp.]

hewlett packard has 4 seperate business with printing, computers, IT systems and some other thing. What industry would you classify them under as im trying to do an industry profile etc for external analysis and competitor analysis. they are different competitors for the 4 different core activities so how can i do competitor analysis with them all combined? also what is the industry they are in? IT industry is WAY to vast there are 1000's of companies and shit

[MsNadi]

Office Products and Networking Services
Or simple: Office Electronics

You may want to address each division of HP as a separate competitor.

For a more realistic approach, you may also want to focus on smaller competitors.

Check Guy Kawasaki's blog for some tips on how NOT to turn off investors when pitching your idea. One thing he mentions is overstating the INITIAL potential market for your product or services.

In other words, you as a "little guy" (only temporarily) has a better opportunity of taking on a SINGLE division of HP (one aspect of their business), or some of THEIR competitors, as opposed to a multi-billion dollar business.

[DaveAPN]

HP is an Information Technology Products company. Printers, computers, servers, etc all fall under that umbrella.

Cheif competitors would be Dell & IBM. Other competitors include: Acer, Samsung, Toshiba, Panasonic, Lexmark, Cannon, Xerox.

Cheers,

[MsNadi]

HP's second largest source of revenues comes not from office products but from integration services (their consulting services) - i.e. networking, IT security.

You're forgetting that like IBM, Samsung, Toshiba, Canon and Xerox - Office Products Manufacturers are realizing that greater revenues (and more consistent revenues) come not from the sale of hardware but from managed services, packaged applications and consulting.

Hence the rumors that HP was going to buy BearingPoint to better compete with IBM.