HP Sets Strategy to Lead in Connected World with Services, Solutions and Technologies

CEO Léo Apotheker focused on the powerful convergence of cloud and connectivity

SAN FRANCISCO,--

HP today shared its vision to provide seamless, secure, context-aware experiences for the connected world. HP Chief Executive Officer Léo Apotheker outlined a strategy for the company to continue delivering unparalleled value for customers and stockholders, while defining the future of information technology. HP is well positioned to win through a compelling combination of financial strength, unmatched scale and global reach, and market-leading positions that span from the consumer to the enterprise.

The convergence of cloud computing and connectivity is fundamentally changing how IT is delivered and how information is consumed. Powerful trends like consumerization, cloud computing and connectivity are redefining the way people live, businesses operate and the world works. Traditional on-premise, proprietary computing resources are gradually being complemented and even replaced by the massive, agile and open computing resources of the cloud. Meanwhile, the cloud is combining with mobility to create ubiquitous connectivity.

In HP’s view, a hybrid environment that combines the best of traditional environments with private and public clouds will be the prevailing model for many large enterprises for a long time. With its leading services portfolio, HP is well positioned to be the trusted partner of customers as they move from the traditional to the hybrid world. Apotheker committed to continue enhancing HP’s offerings across its broad hardware, software and services portfolio to meet evolving customer demands while also leveraging its core strengths to develop the cloud- and connectivity-based solutions of the future to meet the needs of consumers, small and midsize companies and large enterprises. This includes becoming a leading provider of cloud-based platform services.

“We see clearly a world in which the impact of cloud and connectivity is changing not only the user experience, but how individuals, small businesses and enterprises will consume, deploy and leverage information technology. HP is well positioned to be the trusted leader in addressing this opportunity,” said Apotheker. “HP’s scalable, converged infrastructure forms the backbone of today’s cloud computing, and we expect our leadership in software, services, PCs and web-connected printers, as well as the strengths we’ve built and the investments we’ve made, to give us a huge advantage as we help define, deliver and run the truly connected world that spans cloud and connectivity, from the consumer through the enterprise.”

Apotheker outlined a four-point strategy for HP’s expanded market leadership by extending its leadership in managing and optimizing today’s traditional environments; leveraging HP’s core strength in cloud to build and manage next-generation cloud-based architectures; being the trusted partner to customers by enabling the seamless transition to hybrid computing models; and by defining and delivering the connected world from the consumer to the enterprise.

In his presentation, Apotheker examined the impact of industry trends on users and businesses, and how those trends can best be met through HP’s portfolio, core businesses and scale. Of note in the speech:

* HP announced it intends to leverage its position as a leading provider of cloud technology to develop a portfolio of cloud services from infrastructure to platform services. HP also signaled it plans to develop and run the industry’s first open cloud marketplace that will combine a secure, scalable and trusted consumer app store and an enterprise application and services catalog.
* HP intends to build webOS into a leading connectivity platform. As the world’s No. 1 maker of PCs and printers, HP has the potential to deliver 100 million webOS-enabled devices a year into the marketplace, and HP plans to use that scale along with leading development tools to build a robust developer community that is eager to access every segment of the market and every corner of the globe.
* At the event, highlighting an increasing focus to bring innovation to market faster, HP demonstrated a new “big data” appliance, leveraging the unmatched performance of HP computing power mated with real-time, high-speed analytics from Vertica Systems, which HP recently announced its agreement to acquire. HP expects to close the acquisition in its second fiscal quarter and have the HP-branded appliance ready for market immediately thereafter. The proposed HP Vertica solution will offer a choice of delivery options – from appliance, to software, and in the cloud.

“The world has changed dramatically, and we increasingly live in a world where enterprise and personal IT experiences are blurring,” said Crawford Del Prete, chief research officer, IDC. “More and more, it’s about enabling customers to seamlessly and securely interact with the ‘right’ information for a multitude of contexts. The technology and delivery models required to enable this change are significant. HP’s strategy lays a foundation for the company to move from delivering world-class information technology, to world-class information experiences.”

Strategic priorities

HP’s strategy will be driven across a multitude of initiatives, focused on three strategic areas:

Cloud: HP plans to build a full cloud stack and help transition customers to hybrid cloud environments. HP intends to leverage its scale, reliability and security in its current hardware, software and services offerings. HP also plans to grow its higher-value services that offer greater strategic value.

Apotheker today unveiled the company’s plans to build an open applications marketplace that integrates consumer, enterprise and developer services. The platform will support multiple languages and will be open to third-parties. HP will vet applications for security and interoperability to facilitate an environment that is both trusted and open. A device-aware HP cloud will configure and send the appropriate services to the device that the customer is using, and connected devices will intuitively access services the customer needs.

Connectivity: HP also intends to be a leader in the area of connectivity. HP already has a globally distributed installed base in both the consumer and enterprise, and ships two printers and PCs a second, which will be webOS enabled – this huge, growing installed base of devices provides enormous opportunity upon which to build HP-, customer- and ecosystem-driven innovation. HP and its ecosystem of partners will continue to provide context-aware experiences for consumers, SMBs and large enterprises with secure information creation, digitization, transformation and consumption — anytime, anywhere.

Software: Through a build, buy and partner approach, HP intends to continue to enhance its leading management and security portfolio. Using that as a foundation, the company plans to address real-time analytics for “Big Data,” which is the combination of structured and the much faster growing unstructured data set. Upon completion, HP’s acquisition of Vertica will provide an important asset in this area. HP’s digitization offering also provides important information management capabilities that can be verticalized for specific industries. HP will continue to invest in leading-edge technologies and services that go beyond today’s limited point solutions to protect the modern enterprise and provide the security and information backbone that enterprises rely on for visibility and insight across distributed infrastructures and new hybrid environments.

In addition, Apotheker said HP will continue to build upon its financial strength, with a focus on performance that is expected to allow the company to expand into higher-value offerings, grow share of wallet by creating greater strategic value for customers, deliver on the power of the full HP portfolio and, therefore, feed the company’s core businesses. The focus on performance will come through a program focusing on growth, operational excellence and quality.

Concluding, Apotheker said, “Information technology is the fabric of the global community. Data is the world’s most valuable raw material and information is the most valuable commodity – created, consumed and delivered in always-on connectivity. At HP, our mission is to deliver seamless, secure, context-aware experiences for a connected world.”

About HP

HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com/.