Hewlett-Packard

The global supply chain: So very fragile

Manufacturers have spent years building low-cost global supply chains. Natural disasters are showing them just how delicate those networks really are.

By Bill Powell, editor-at-large

FORTUNE -- The image to the right is almost surreal: It shows part of a Honda auto factory in central Thailand, one of the largest in Southeast Asia, swamped under 15 feet of water, brand-new cars floating in the currents. The devastating November flooding in Thailand, which MORE

Today in Tech: WebOS lives, more hardware coming

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"If you don't fail, you haven't tried hard enough."
-- Shervin Pishevar, Menlo Ventures Managing Partner (TechCrunch)

* HP (HPQ) has finally decided the fate of the WebOS operating system, and things are looking up. The company announced that it's making WebOS "open source," allowing developers and other hardware manufacturers to freely MORE

'Pure' PC makers reportedly fleeing the tablet market

Likely to leave the field to Apple, Amazon and Barnes & Noble, according to DigiTimes

Taipei-based DigiTimes, which has been churning out rumors from Asian electronics parts suppliers as fast as its correspondents can type, reported Thursday that unnamed "sources from upstream supply chain" believe that PC makers such as Hewlett-Packard (HPC), Dell (DELL), Acer and Asustek will "gradually phase out" of the tablet market.

According to DigiTimes:

With Amazon offering its Kindle Fire at MORE

Cisco promised a turnaround. Is this it?

Cisco has been struggling to find a suitable second act. Now, with its major competitors distracted, the first glimmers of hope may be in sight.

By Kevin Kelleher, contributor

FORTUNE -- Few companies have been as central to the Internet's development as Cisco. ISPs, private companies and public institutions have relied on its switches and routers so much that the San Jose company's name might as well be synonymous with the Net's MORE

Gartner: Apple and Asus were the big winners in Europe in Q3

Their PC shipments grew by double digits while the broader market fell more than 11%

Even without counting the iPad, Apple (AAPL) gained smartly on the major personal computer vendors in Europe last quarter according to a report issued Monday by Gartner, Inc.

While the broader market for PCs fell 11.4% in the quarter, Apple's Mac shipments grew 19.6%. Only Asus, which specializes in Microsoft (MSFT) Windows-based notebooks, grew faster.

Otherwise, writes Gartner's MORE

Morgan Stanley: Apple's share of world's largest PC market -- China -- set to grow from 5% to 21%

Chinese consumers rate Macs as most desirable, although only 7% can afford one

In August, according to IDC, China overtook the U.S. as the world's largest consumer of personal computers.

On Wednesday, Morgan Stanley issued the results of a survey suggesting that Apple (AAPL) is the best positioned of all PC manufacturers to capitalize on the boom.

Summarizing the results of a proprietary Alphawise survey of 1,553 consumers in 16 Chinese cities, Morgan MORE

The greening of Apple Inc.

Jumps to 4th place in the latest Greenpeace survey of electronics manufacturers

Apple (AAPL) has come a long way in the eyes of the environmental activitsts at Greenpeace since they painted Steve Jobs as a hypocrite for promising "a greener Apple" in May 2007 and delivering an iPhone the next month laced with bromine, chlorine and phthlates.

In its annual Guide to Greener Electronics that year, Apple came in 11th place, barely MORE

Today in Tech: Will HP sell the webOS division?

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"People like to talk about war. ... Google, I think, in some ways, is more competitive and certainly is trying to build their own little version of Facebook." -- Mark Zuckerberg on Charlie Rose (Business Insider)

* Besides appearing on Charlie Rose recently with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Zuckerberg also MORE

Apple's headcount, up 30%, still industry's most productive

With one seventh as many employees as IBM, Apple generates 13 times more profit

As of September, Apple (AAPL) had 60,400 full-time equivalent employees, according to the SEC Form 10-K it filed Wednesday, nearly 30% more than the 46,600 it reported in Q4 2010.

But those employees generate more profit per capita -- by far -- than any of Apple's peers in the industry.

In the quarter that ended in September -- not MORE

Today in Tech: Redbox raising rental price

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"I can understand wanting to have millions of dollars, there's a certain freedom, meaningful freedom, that comes with that. But once you get much beyond that, I have to tell you, it's the same hamburger. Dick's [Drive In] has not raised their prices enough ... But being ambitious is good. MORE