Last week’s HP Discover event in Barcelona saw a raft of new announcements from the Palo Alto giant, but also reassurances of stability ahead of the planned separation into Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Inc.
Though CEO Meg Whitman gave little additional detail about the separation, the message was clear: “HP has turned the corner and we are coming back really strong.”
“In 2012, we stabilised HP,” she said. “We improved product and service focus, we made organisational changes to better serve you, and in 2013, we started to rebuild HP. I’d like to think we won back your confidence.”
“We’ve done that through improving cash flow, improving business processes and turning up the volume on R&D.”
“In 2015, we need to accelerate the progress that we have made,” CEO Whitman
Whitman said that HP had gone from a net debt position of nearly $12 billion (€9.7 billion), in late 2011, to a current net profit position of $5.9 billion (€4.7 billion).
Whitman said that R&D investments were up 10% annually, as evidenced by recent offerings across the full range of HP segments, such as Apollo Servers, Haven platform, all-flash 3Par Storage, and the new computing architecture project, the Machine.
“In 2015, we need to accelerate the progress that we have made.”
Whitman confirmed that the split will see Hewlett Packard Enterprise break away from the personal systems and print group, which will become HP Inc., led by current executive vice president of Printing and Personal Systems, Dion Weisler.
“We are separating Hewlett Packard into two new Fortune 50 companies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Inc.,” said Whitman.
“Hewlett Packard Enterprise will be built on HP’s leading position in servers, storage, networking, converged systems, services and software, plus our Helion cloud platform, built on OpenStack.”
“We are committed to providing the right compute for the right workload, at the right economics, every single time,” said Whitman.
“We will empower customers to take the IT journey that’s right for them.”
“The outcome that you want is the outcome that matters to us,” she said.
The separation will take place around November of 2015, said Whitman, the start of fiscal year. Until then, Whitman said that the two new entities will be sharing tools and resources.
“HP Inc. will be the world’s leading personal systems and printing company. It will deliver innovation that empowers people to create, to interact and inspire like never before,” she said.
In support of this, Whitman cited new technologies from that side of business, such as the HP Multi Jet Fusion, a new 3D printing technology, and Sprout by HP, a first in what it terms immersive computing.
“Separation is the right next step in the great HP turnaround story, to further build our reputation as Silicon Valley’s founder.”
“Hewlett Packard was born in Dave Packard’s one car garage, on Addison Avenue, Palo Alto. After next year, you can think of HP in a two car garage,” said Whitman.
“The leadership running these two companies will be experienced and highly qualified,” she said. “We’ll read the winds and change course much faster.”
Whitman will be CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and also chair of the board of HP Inc.
“While we undergo this separation, know that the HP strategy remains the same, to provide solutions for the new style of IT. To me the new style of IT, is actually a new style of business that is powered by IT,” said Whitman.
Weisler too was keen to emphasise stability ahead of the separation. In a presentation on day two of the event, Weisler said “Our vision and our strategy is unchanged.”
Weisler said that HP would continue to design enterprise grade, personal products that combine the attributes such as “thin, light and sexy,” with “secure, robust and reliable”.
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