Tag: meg whitman

Meg Whitman describes HP’s amicable divorce

Posted on October 7, 2015 by - News

Meg Whitman, photo by Mike MageeMeg Whitman was quizzed by the audience at the Canalys Channels Forum in Barcelona, today.

She said that the reason for splitting the company was to be more focused. She said it was remarkably complex on all fronts whether it was the IT or the supply chains HP used.

On August 1st HP started operating as two separate companies she said, and on November 2nd there will be two separate Fortune 50 companies.

She believes that HP will demonstrate the success of the separation. The two companies will be called HP Inc and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. She said HP wanted to avoid inventing a new brand name and wanted both companies to be linked to the HP heritage.

HPE will have a green rectangular logo. HPE will include HP financial services. On November the 2nd, both companies will probably still be in the same buildings. She said that there’s a joint venture between HP Inc and HPE to work together on the supply chain to leverage the size.

Whitman said the biggest challenge was the IT separation. She said the company had to change emails, URLs, servers, and the rest. She said HPE will be a much faster and agile company but one thing that won’t change is partner focus. “Channel is in our DNA,” she said.

Whitman said she has rooted out the “nay sayers” in the company. She said the separation means both companies will have something of a rebirth. Everyone in both companies is going to be “fully engaged”.

She said HP has increased R&D spending every year for the last four years. She said in a software defined world infrastructure matters more than ever. She thinks configuration of infrastructure to apps will be an important part of HPE’s strategy.

Software is only seven percent of revenue but HPE is about providing answers for the new type of IT.

She said that the slimming down of headcount in the services business recenrly was intended to make that business unit leaner and meaner and HPE expected revenues in that sector to grow.

She said the Safe Harbour provision that the EU court ruled was invalid yesterday wouldn’t affect the two companies too much, because data was generally held locally. There may be changes but she believed HP set that process going four years ago.

One question from the audience that was asked, but wasn’t aired,  was whether Whitman would vote for Winsome Carly Fiorina as president of the USA.

HP should buy EMC

Posted on July 3, 2015 by - News

INDUSTRY HP 1Analyst Raymond James has created a flap over his idea that now is the perfect time for HP to buy EMC.

James believes an acquisition deal between HP and EMC is a “distinct possibility” as HP inches closer to its company split date in November. The two companies agreed, at least once before, and had more than a year’s worth of merger talks before giving up, mostly on the matter of price.

Channel partners of both companies said the deal makes sense and would be beneficial to them and it is looking like other analysts agree.

Such a deal would improve HP’s cloud portfolio with VMware and Virtustream services, while EMC and Pivotal would boost the converged infrastructure and analytics side of the portfolio. HP provide some good mobile tech.

HP is splitting the enterprise divisions from the PC and print side of the business, and is certain to have that done by Christmas. HP CEO Meg Whitman has indicated further acquisitions and so it is possible that EMC is on the table.

HP Enterprise of the new HP – will be a lot more aligned with the current EMC and VMW businesses in terms of end-market focus.

A united company is worth $2 billion more. HP would kill off its 3Par storage over time, and EMC would shelve its Content Management in favour of HP’s Autonomy.

 

 

 

HP split set for November 1

Posted on June 3, 2015 by - News

Whitman's-SamplerThe maker of expensive printer ink, HP will be splitting itself in two on November 1.

HP queen bee, Meg Whitman said that everything will be good to go for the separation of HP and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise would be effective on November 1.

Whitman made the announcement during the company’s technology event, HP Discover 2015, in Las Vegas.

The world’s No. 2 personal computer maker wants to split into two listed companies, separating its computer and printer businesses from its faster-growing corporate hardware and services operations.

Whitman believes that breaking HP into two companies, with about $57 billion in annual revenue each, will create two more nimble outfits which can respond to the constantly shifting technology marketplace.

Whitman will be left in charge of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, which will include the $27 billion division that sells industrial-grade computing and networking gear and the $23 billion Enterprise Services business, which runs the tech and IT operations for other companies under contract.

Her slimmed-down company will walk away from the separation with the majority of the parent’s cash — about $13.3 billion — which will allow it to quickly pivot into deal-making mode. It’ll also allow both new companies to re-engage with Silicon Valley and the wider tech industry, she claims.

HP divides but will it conquer?

Posted on October 7, 2014 by - News

Meg WhitmanThe decision by HP to split itself into two companies has the whiff of desperation about it.

One wing will sell printer ink and PCs, while the other will position itself selling into the enterprises with services and hardware.

Meg Whitman said that the move is intended to give both wings flexibility in the different marketplaces they represent but the end result is more likely to be confusion than clarity.

And it is worth contrasting Hewlett Packard with Dell. The latter has managed to re-engineer its entire business over the last five years and be successful in selling into services, into software and for the PCs that have brought it smelling of success. It uses its different services and products to leverage its sales. And it doesn’t  panic, Captain Whitman.

The devil is in the HP detail.

The newly spring Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and HP Inc could well end up competing with each other but that isn’t the least of their problems.  The move will mean a big shift in its relationship with its partners – some of which sell the entire range of HP kit and services through distribution. Those details will take quite some disentangling.

HP is in the fourth year of its five year plan but this looks a bit of its plan that wasn’t originally part of its five year plan.

Whitman said that by moving one HP to two HPs it will be in a better position to compete, support its customers and partners and also bring in extra cash for its shareholders.  That’s what she hopes.

HP one and HP two hope to complete the separation by the end of its financial year 2015.  Whitman will serve on the boards of HP one and HP two. That will be jolly interesting when the two companies finally get their infrastructure act together.

The official release doesn’t say how HP one and HP two will share their technology, and employees – who have since big restructures over the last three years – just exactly feel about all or any of this.

Wall Street seems to like it – HP’s share price rose as the news was confirmed yesterday.

HP joggles PC/printer divisions – again

Posted on October 5, 2014 by - News

Whitman's-SamplerOnce Again, HP has decided to evolve the PC and Printer operations as a distinct and separate corporate entity.

HP came close to selling both divisions during the short reign of Leo Apotheker. After the discovery of a massive over payment for Autonomy Corp. HP’s Board decided Leo had to go and PC & Printers had to stay.

Slipping to the number two position behind Lenovo, HP has decided to spin the combined organization into a separate entity under the aegis of Dion Weisler as CEO (Weisler is an exec in the PC and printer operation currently). Patricia Russo will be installed as the Enterprise company’s new Chairman (former lead independent director).  Meg Whitman will remain CEO of the Enterprise company and oversee corporate guidance of the PC/Printer entity as Chairman.

What difference does this make? Reporting structures loaded with changes in culpability mostly, freeing Whitman up for minding the Enterprise store and:

  • Aligns Weisler for the fall when and if the PC/Printers Division comes in under plan.
  • Allows time to position the PC/Printer Group for a potential sale.

HP has been struggling in their efforts at penetrating the Cloud with their Moonshot technology – Whitman may find the ice a little thin for skating this Winter and into next Spring.

HP’s merger discussions with EMC recently ended. We’re left wondering if what we are now seeing is part of a “Plan B” by HP’s Board of Directors…,

 

HP shows small signs of turnaround

Posted on November 27, 2013 by - News

HPGiant vendor Hewlett Packard turned in a profit of $1.4 billion on revenues of $29.1 billion, compared to a loss of $6.9 billion in the same fourth quarter a year back.

But although its enterprise group showed growth of two percent, its other divisions – personal systems, printing, enterprse services and software showed declines from the same period last year. Enterprise services fell nine percent, as did software.

All in all, HP’s revenues showed a 2.8 percent decline – and it expects further small declines in revenue.

The enterprise group managed to sell more storage and servers, with a two percent rise in sales. That follows CEO Meg Whitman’s decision a few months ago to shake up the unit.

Whitman thinks that HP needs to spend more money on research and development.

HP to slash 7,000 EMEA jobs

Posted on October 28, 2013 by - Moving People, News

HPHewlett-Packard is planning to cut as many as 7,095 jobs in EMEA. Some of the staff will be redeployed, but some will get the sack. HP did not offer a timeline for the cuts.

“Under the proposal presented to the European Works Council (EWC), HP expects approximately 7,095 employees to exit the company or to be redeployed into new roles,” the company said.

HP added that workforce reduction plans will vary by country, based on legal requirements and consultation with work councils and employee representatives. Needless to say, HP is adamant that the cuts will have no effect on customer service.

The cuts come as no surprise, as HP has already outlined plans to reduce its workforce by 15 percent in an effort to save $3 billion. It’s all part of Meg Whitman’s cunning five-year plan, which like most five-year plans isn’t going well. However, Whitman is not in a position to send anyone to Siberia or unperson them, so all HP can do is sack a bunch of people and hope Lenovo doesn’t eat its lunch in the meantime.

HP squeezes profit despite poor PC sales

Posted on August 22, 2013 by - News

HPHewlett Packard reported net income of $1.39 billion for its third fiscal quarter. HP’s revenue fell eight percent to $27.2 billion, down from $29.7 a year ago. It wasn’t all bad news though. The company managed to post a profit of $1.39 billion, or 86 cents per share, barely beating Wall Street expectations which hovered around 85 cents.

Revenue fell across the board, but the PC business took the biggest hit. HP mitigated the effects of the downturn by cutting costs and focusing on more profitable niches. As a result, its expenses were down 34 percent last quarter, to $25.3 billion, down from $38.5 billion last year. The PC slump is here to stay and HP’s cost cutting seems to be paying dividends, quite literally.

PC revenue was down 11 percent, printer revenue was down 4 percent, while servers, storage and networking were down nine percent. Business services were also down nine percent, financial services took a six percent hit and only HP’s software business ended in the red, up one percent.

HP shares fell three percent following the news, but the company managed to end the day on a positive note. It raised its outlook and now it expects full year earnings in the $3.53 a share to $3.57 share range, up from $3.50 to $3.60.

CEO Meg Whitman told investors that year-on-year revenue growth remains unlikely.

“This is a five-year turnaround with milestones along the way. … We need to accelerate into the next turn,” Whitman said.

Although HP’s PC unit took a big hit, in the big scheme of things it did not underperform, as all PC vendors except Lenovo are going through a rough patch. Some are in much worse shape than HP. However, HP still looks relatively weak on the mobile front. The company ditched the smartphone business a few years ago and its first crack at the tablet market was a flop. However, in recent months it announced several interesting tablets and hybrids, so there’s still hope it could gain a foothold in the tablet market.

HP chucks Moonshine at non-x86 SECCs P.I.E

Posted on April 8, 2013 by - News, Products

hpmoonshineHP has announced the latest in Project Moonshine, which CEO Meg Whitman said in a web conference should be a shift in the way servers handle data. It may also be a shift away from X86.

If nothing is done to address core infrastructure problems, Whitman said, infrastructure could be something that actually holds back the development of the web instead of enabling it. “It’s not just about cellphones and tablets connected to the internet but millions of sensors collecting data,” she said, machines talking to machines, and generating not petabytes but brontobytes of data.

Project Moonshine, Whitman promised, would not be jailhouse toilet booze but a “multiyear” and “multi phased” program to shape the future of data centres – as the current path we’re on is “not sustainable from a space, energy and cost perspective”. Using years of HP Labs research, Whitman and HP Moonshine will hel create “the foundation for the next 20 billion devices”.

In a webcast, HP’s Dave Donetelli mentioned the proof of concept for Moonshine which was unveiled in 2011, and since HP roped in 50 beta customers to thoroughly develop and test its various iterations. Now, HP has given the world the second gen Moonshine servers, which it claims are based on the concept of the ‘software defined server’ – that is, specifically with internet scaled workloads in mind, and designed for the software that needs to run on it.

Donetelli said the servers address Space, Energy, Cost, and Complexity (SECC). By which he means there’s less of all of the above.

The Moonshot 1500 enclosure, Donetelli points out, can hold 45 Moonshot servers, and compared to the traditional ProLiant server, it uses up to 80 percent less energy, 80 percent less space, and is 77 percent cheaper. Customers, then, will be able to build better revenues from a smaller footprint for less cash. These servers run on the Intel Atom s1200, though partners like AMD, Applied Micro, Texas Instruments and Calxeda are all bringing in new chipsets – which HP hopes will provoke market competition and more innovation.

Targeting big data, high performance computing, gaming, financial services, facial recognition, video analysis and other stuff, Donetelli promised that the portfolio of the servers will grow – and at a quicker rate thanks to the competition between its partners as it’s not tied to an 18 to 24 month chip cycle.

Partners will be able to, and encouraged to join the Pathfinder Innovation Ecosystem, or P.I.E., including operating system developers and software vendors.

Donetelli said this announcement is not an “incremental change” but a “new class of servers designed for the data centre”.

When asked if these will replace X86 servers, an HP spokesperson said PCs were the high volume product at that time, today things that people buy in high volume are smartphones and tablets. A transition from Unix to X86 took time, and HP believes a transition from X86 to Moonshot will take time. “X86 will be here for a very long time, but Moonshot will be here for a long time,” the spokesperson said.

Analyst Patrick Moorhead said that the developments are positive because the servers of today aren’t ready for the explosion in data driven by future trends such as the all-singing all dancing totally connected internet of things.

The first Moonshot server is shipping today in US & Canada and will be available to channel partners around the world next month.

HP’s Whitman brings cheers to its channel

Posted on February 19, 2013 by - Gossip, News

Meg Whitman, photo by Mike MageeMeg Whitman, president and CEO of HP opened up her keynoting at the global partner event here in Las Vegas by stressing the importance of the channel. “I love the channel,” she said. “You are a huge part of our success and a huge part of our future.  “I want to provide an update to HP’s strategy and growth, demonstrate our commitment to the channel and to make it more profitable for the channel to do business with Hewlett Packard.”

“The last couple of years at Hewlett Packard haven’t been easy,” she said. But HP is turning itself round. “We know what needs to get done and we’re doing it.”  Last year she laid out a four year plan for Hewlett Packard. “My management team needed to come together with a realistic view of what we needed to do and what we needed to change.”

2014 will mean a recovery and the basis for future expansion, she said. “You won’t have to wait until 2015 to see progress. You will see the results this year. In 2013 we are on a very strong financial footing. Last year HP generated $10.6 billion of cash flow from operations. That’s more operating cash flow than Coca Cola, Disney and Fedex. A company with $10.6 billion in cash flow is a force to be reckoned wth.”

One of the biggest problems HP has had in the last few years has been churn in top management, she admitted.  HP has taken some of its old HR systems and revised them. Last year HP invested more in R&D, it launched a new advertising campain, and revised its entire communications and PR strategy.  HP has put an increased focus on the channel, she said.  HP created a party advisory board and surveyed 6,000 channel partners.

That showed HP was too complex to do business with, there are too mny complicated programmes and HP’s tools and processes were hard to navigate, Whitman said. It has implemented a single channel programme.  HP now has a very clear policy about taking business away from the channel and going direct. “This will simply not be tolerated,” she said, raising heavy applause from the channel audience.

“Partners are part of the DNA of Hewlett Packard and are an essential part of our future,” she said.  HP will make it simpler and more consistent to do business with its partners and strengthen trust and loyalty. HP has simplified the management of the channel and will work hand in hand in business growth.  “A fast no is far better than a slow no. A long yes isn’t satisfying either,” she said.

HP will rationalise sales and technical specifications and will simplify the support profile. There will be one partner programme across the whole of HP, she reiterated. HP will implement a simple compensation model generating rebates from the first sale. It will also remove caps and allow an unlimited pay out.  It will put more focus on making its compensation structure clear. There will be a new HP tool to simplify channel business. HP Financial Services will also chip in on the channel front.

She said that HP has a number of products so popular that there is a shortage, such as its storage portfolio and its Elite tablet, aimed at the enterprise market. She said that the leadership across the channel business had the power to do their best now. HP has kept its best and brightest executives but has brought in some new members of the management team.