HP storage results borked by bleeding currency rates

You should wonder why analysts feel the need to make excuses for HP.

• It’s up to HP to mitigate the impact of the currency; if the currency impact was favorable it wouldn’t get a mention.

• In the past 16 quarters, HP Storage has only shown positive year-over-year growth in three of them, and in those three case growth was 1.0% or less. Was currency also to blame in the past 16 quarters? I think not.

• With enough negative quarters in tow it eventually becomes possible to start to appear to “outgrow” the competition, but that’s only because HP is “growing” from a very low base.

• So if HP Storage “appears” to be doing comparatively better than EMC, IBM & NetApp because it outgrew each of them, well that’s the first time that it has happened. Ever. One quarter marginally outgrowing EMC doesn’t make for an eternity under-growing EMC.

• To put last quarter’s revenue of $784M in its proper context: it’s the 2nd lowest quarter of revenue in the last ten years (the lowest was only the quarter before that) and it’s 20% down from its’ 3Q peak in 2011 of $976M. In contrast, EMC is up 6% over the same period.

And ask yourself what exactly is it that HP Storage will be able to do after the split that it couldn’t do today?