Rahul leaves HP

chiming in a bit late but...

no surprise to me that Rahul leaves HP...
i think he was filling in the time deemed necessary for a "smooth" transition...
i'm sure when the deal was signed, an exit strategy was in place... and it was only a matter of time...

i would do the same...
thinking of the future, whatever it may bring, "take the money and git out of dodge" is never going to leave a good lasting impression...

You are likely correct. There really should not have been any surprises about it.

It was pretty obvious once Voodoo was no longer a subsidiary operating independently, but rather a small piece in a very large organization. What I don't understand is why HP bought Voodoo in the first place. Must have been one hell of a pitch on Voodoo's part.

There still has to be a missing part to the story.

Well HP did admit two acquisitions mistakes, voodoo and palm...

I hope you don't mind me stepping in on this one. Over the past year I have become incredibly interested in Voodoo and its history and I have complied a somewhat in depth look at the whole situation as a whole. Rahul did an interview in September in which he states he tried several times to purchase Voodoo back or let him run it independently again. Neither of the later would be really possible for a large public company to do, becasue for one they would be letting an insider purchase assets at a loss or pose a potential threat as competition. The overall timing of the HP's reawaking of voodoo I do admit was the worst possible. But going back to the root cause of why HP baught voodoo in the first place was that Rahul was able to convince HP that Voodoo was something it was not and that being mainly that Dell was interested in it and that Voodoo was alot more productive and profitable than it actually was. In another interview in I believe in early 2011 Rahul goes more in depth on Voodoo and details more on the financial side of the business, he states that their sales were in the high eight figure territory before HP bought the company. I can't get around that fact.....I understand that they sold some desktops that breached $30,000 it still seems incredibly high but I must fall under the assumption were far less then that. And looking at an article from 2005 at Notebookreview it says that 60% of voodoos sales were from laptops... I just don't see it. You'd see more product in the seconday markets even if they all were custom ordered. What also leads me to believe this is over a 4 month period from which the last voodoo omen was avaliable for purchase only 25 were sold and the order period started in august three months before the economy tanked. It seems logical to me now that voodoo just couldn't penetrate deep enough into the general population with the products and throw it in the fact that warranty and repair departments could not handle a sufficent load in a reasonalbe time all just meant costs mounted and at a certain point a company will start losing money just from that aspect and from what I can compile from old reviews and compliants from 2006-2008 there were numerous problems with the watercooling systems. I think that HP decided before the product launch to started winding back and to being their bad decison in house to try to recoup some loss from the acquisition and to hide from the public and its sharholders that it had done such an unprofitable endeavor.

I know its long but I have been wanting to say this for a long time, I just find it incredibly interesting.

I am happy to see it die off vs continuing on in the direction hp was taking them. Voodoo was always known for high end one off systems with only the best components. HP started introducing cheaply made systems such as the blackbird, Although spec'd with some decent components the plastic case and aio water cooling solution is ultimately what killed it imo. You may think so what if it was made out of plastic all of the pcs on the market today are including alienware. Voodoo never used any plastic in there construction. In fact they only used the best components available, It was part of there design philosophy.

It is obvious hp was using cheaper components in an attempt to make the division profitable but voodoo was all about no compromise gaming pcs. I am more then sure perspective buyers noticed and bought from other boutiques instead such as falcon northwest.

While I understand Raul's reasoning for wanting to continue with his company's brand name if it was really a profitable market and something he wanted to get back into he would have simply made a new brand and logo and started making pcs just as voodoos were built and put that name and logo on them instead. Gaming pcs were always a niche market as most gamers (myself included) prefer to build there own rigs not buy them.

Besides I think he is having a lot more fun with M$ anyway. I am not sure how much input he has or in what, I just hope that he keeps the interests of pc gamers in mind.

Construction and long lasting is why I mess with toughbooks mainly. I do some re-building and re-selling with them but nothing large scale. Even some of there really old Pentium 1's versions are working fine. Some of there newest ones have really stepped up finally in the graphics dept too.

It's quite possible that Voodoo's sales were in the eight figures. The math to arrive at that number isn't that far fetched. However, that is one small piece of the story and we'd need access to Voodoo's complete financial statements to even begin to understand what position they were in. Even then, you still have to take the financial statements with a grain of salt, as financial statements can be prepared in such a way to present a company in its best light, and which isn't always reflective of reality. Here's a simple example: If Voodoo had sales in the eight figures, what was their cost of sales? In other words, what kind of revenue where they actually realizing? Cash flow could have been poor and Voodoo might have been leaking money each month, even if they were showing strong sales.

Regardless, I agree with you, killer. It is interesting and, unfortunately, I doubt we'll ever get to hear the full story.

There is always just one thing I can't get my head around. HP has the name, some of the people from voodoo still, and they still have mark Soloman, who created all the voodoo and voodoodna products. Why do they come out with the Phoenix as an attempt to reach back in the gaming sector? Why not repurpose what they have in storage. It would probably beat out dells Alienware with proper marketing in a matter if a few quarters.

I retake back part of what I said before. I don't think hp has claim to voodoo as a trademark anymore. I checked awhile ago and there's no record of it for the past two years. I got curious about it after I spoke with the guys in ft Collins. Which I find odd that they aren't even under hp but under another company. I guess hp is only going to keep that around until next year or so once the final warranty is finished because I have to assume that hp sold some 4 year warranties with the firebird and envy 133.

It does appear that HP has washed their hands of the entire thing.

Nope no 4 year warranties.

I have to admin I had one eyebrow raised when reading this.

And the other was . . . ?

I agree completely with Seamaster's comment. Cash flow is the key. Even though sales may have been good there were chronic problems with some of the laptops--one that occurs to me now is cracked hinges. This problem seemed to occur accross the entire line of a specific model. If this is the case, the effect on warranty cost and, thus, cash flow could have been devastating.

Coupled with the increase in warranty costs, the bad publicity from these problems would have acted to drive down sales, thus further effecting cash flow.

And lastly, a young company needs cash to expand as a part of it's normal course of business. It was obvious, based on wait-times for new product as well as repaired products, that Voodoo had severe cashflow problems as early as 2003.

Regarding the other eyebrow - pointing in another random direction.

I came into Voodoo late in the game, so I can't comment on these theories about cash flow.

Ethelred has a point. Part of the pain of ordering a Voodoo was the wait time, and that was because Voodoo didn't carry stock. Voodoo wouldn't even order the stock or begin work until the customer's payment had cleared, which suggests they had little to no working capital. The approach was always marketed as a variation of just-in-time (JIT) inventory, but the turnaround was too slow for that to truly be the case. The result was that too often customers didn't end up with bleeding-edge hardware, but nearly bleeding-edge because something new had come out between the customer placing his or her order and actually receiving the end product. That said, it was the bling and cabling that sold me on Voodoo.

I bought mine in 2006, and had a two month wait for the build. (In comparison, the build on my laptop from Digital Storm took less than two weeks.) Voodoo would not start a build until they had your money first -- in fact, they ordered parts after they had the money. That definitely screams cash flow issues!

It is a shame that they are now defunct. Because of the original price point and the level of customization offered it has resulted in some extremely rare and unique cases.

Its rare that I like any time of product with corporate branding on it. I still to this day am not offended by the voodoo name or logo on my case, In fact I like the way it looks a lot. Its clear that voodoo thought about how there logo would look on the finished product. A concept that seems lost to both ford and chevy.

. . . to say nothing of almost every other computer manufacturer nowadays . . .

I dunno, that Ford logo goes back a long way. I actually think it looks okay.

There area lot of car logos nowadays that I have a hard time identifying. Nothing seems really distinctive any more.

The one that bothers me most is Chrysler's -- a poor knock-off of an Aston Martin's!

The ones that bother me the most are the ones where I cannot figure out what car they are!

Since I like cars, I usually have little difficulty identifying a car. What ones do you find difficult to make out?