Hewlett-Packard (HP) has laid off nearly 2000 employees worldwide in recent months but there have been no job losses in Australia.
While more reviews are underway overseas with further losses likely in coming months, a spokesperson for HP Australia said not a single job had been cut locally since the start of the year and none were planned in the near future.
Earlier this week HP CEO Mark Hurd said there were no plans to carve up the company in a bid to be more competitive.
While analysts have been suggesting the vendor should split its imaging and printing business and personal systems group to generate more profit, customers claim that would be a recipe for disaster.
Merrill Lynch analyst Steven Milunovich said users don't want to see HP broken up, but they do want HP to find its differentiation.
A survey of 100 CIOs carried out by the analyst found nearly 50 percent had decreased their commitment to HP over the past three years with 56 percent claiming HP's 2002 acquisition of Compaq was not "smart".
However, Macquarie Textiles IT manager Paul Cullen said the acquisition was a great "synergy".
"Our commitment has increased. We've purchased a full server infrastructure through HP, and desktops," Cullen said adding that HP should not spin off any part of the business.
"Part of its strength is its size, in terms of research budgets and industry pulling power, and if you were to break it up into single entities I think that would be compromised, then they would run the risk of being snapped up by someone like IBM."
John Wycliffe Christian School IT manager Nathan Zamprogno agrees, claiming any break-up would achieve little for customers.
When it comes to Compaq, Zamprogno thinks it wasn't a very good buy.
"I tend to put more faith in the HP brand than the Compaq brand," Zamprogno said.
