But today, HP’s biz customers are losing brand faith and HP is not adapting to the commoditization of their business line products. IT buyers see no differentiation, and the old brand loyalty HP had has all but disappeared.

I go for 2 separate brands/sub brands? for consumer and business.

2) My current HP laptop is cumbersome, a power-hog, had its hard drive fail within a month of purchase - as did my colleague's (purchased same model at same time)

Over the past 2 decades there have been no shortage of marketing & advertising professionals who have tried in vain to make HP stand for something relevant to their customers and potential customers. I see no fundamental customer barriers to HP, only internal confusion, indecision and inconsistency.

HP can also use endorsing brand strategy and give brith to some new high or low cost brands.

Can HP maintain the ability to come up with new brands successfully, keeping in view in the mind for avoiding cannibalization.

Yes, the new IBM. We also have to take into account that with IBM’s sell-off of its PC division to a Chinese company it’s more realistic to believe that the new owners will compete in the US market by having a lower price point. This would leave the high-end PC market up for grabs for the most innovative companies (the new HP brand).

The problem of HP is that it hasn't achieved the best results in all categories although all the time it uses its slogan 'HP Invent'. Other branding has been much more stronger, positioned and differentiated much better (Zeiss, Samsung DigitAll).

I think HP have to rethink and probably reposition their brands (think extensions), and has to refresh communications. It's only about communicating what you are and who you are and there is nothing about making the best device. All can do this. Here their market is mature already and if someone invents something, all others 'invents' too. That's the truth.

The bulk of HP's external branding effort is consumer targeted and designed to position them as a company dedicated to technolocigal advancements. Afterall, their communications all carry the same theme...'invent.'

But, the problem is that they aren't living up to that brand promise. They aren't launching new technologies. They aren't developing ground-breaking products. They aren't even producing captivating product design. Until they move from evolutionary to revolutionary, the 'invent' model will never be fully accepted by the audience it's being delivered to. More importantly, until they can effectively reach their audience and prove they can deliver on their brand promise, it doesn't matter if they make printers, desktops, monitors or fishing poles.

Compaq accomplished those key goals admirably without discounting and gimmicks. Likewise HP printing was able to dominate their chosen field with equal success and continue to do so.

However, under the merged entity of the two companies HP appears to have been far less successful, especially with the former, increased shareholder value.

It is time for HP to go back to basics. That may be fragmeting the company, but in my view resurrecting the Compaq brand and allowing the focus on handheld and mobile computing to return to what it was under Compaq, high quality, high value products with associated price tags.

Simultaneously, HP's core competencies of enabling users to record and immortalise thoughts and ideas (via printers) should, once again, become its guiding principle.

1) They should resign from HP brand in PC market and make use of Compaq (which was and is firstly perceived as a PC brand) - they might go to high-end market with restaged Compaq brand as there is a possible gap on the market, when IBM's PC branch was taken over by Chineese Lenovo - clients (especially corporate)might be a little bit suspicious about "new IBM's" credibility... Compaq/HP should make use from these doubts!

2) Printers: there should be strategic focus on innovativeness and specialization of HP in printing and imaging/digital photography segments - Lexmark is a serious low-cost competitor (like Dell in PCs) and Xerox in business document management solutions - that is why HP should differentiate on the market using so far perceived "HP Invent" image - HP should refresh market in way like Logitech does it in peripherals - high quality and innovation + nice design with reasonable, but quite high prices

With 75% profits coming from imaging business, HP's business essentially becomes imaging & printers business and HP, a Printers Brand. This has made, over the years, brand HP conjure up a Printer or an imaging product. We can say the imaging business has diminished HPs role on the turf donned by IBM & Sun Micro-Business/High End Computing.

The point then is; is the brand HP has its brand and mental associations stong enough to pick for businesses?

The businesses of 'Servers' and 'enterprise technology consulting' are probably targeted at medium-sized to large companies, with very specific needs relatively to the consumer segment. Are the values HP promotes extensible to this segment? Market research could give us some insight. Lets remember that HP doesn't need to create a completely new brand for this segment, completely detached from the HP brand. In fact, they could capitalize on the assets of the HP brand by developing a brand for this particular segment with some degree of association with HP, eg. HP Business, HP Solutions...

The consumer segment and the small company segment should be addressed with the HP brand, since I guess they have similar needs.

Reasons:
1. The SBUs can develop core competence.
2. Better talent could be attracted for the business seperately
3. Top management's focus does not get diluted with different businesses

This way they can build value for money systems from low till high end hardware (computers, laser printers etc.), and for businesses, they can build high-end systems & hardware.

This way, the development of the two brands will be more focused resulting for better products both to consumers and businesses. As an advertiser, they might consider re-positioning their brand as it concerns PCs.