| D-Day
for ‘the new HP'
Eight months since
the merger announcement and following a heated proxy battle, computing
mainstay In a press conference last night, CEO Carly Fiorina and president Michael Capellas ushered in “day one” of the new HP. They presented roadmaps for the product lines and discussed their vision of the market. “We are at a fascinating inflection point in the industry,” said Capellas, who believes that the next market driver will be the need to “digitise everything”, and deliver that content “everywhere, any time”. Both Fiorina and Capellas mentioned “industry-standard building blocks” on which to build HP's technology in the future. This strategy will see the companies' RISC lines of servers migrating to Intel's 64-bit architecture, although Capellas notes that HP will continue its support for both Unix and Windows server software. There were few surprises in the product roadmap, with the iPaq brand selected for both handheld devices and business PCs and notebooks. The consumer line of PCs will keep both brands. According to Bob Waiman, CFO of the new HP, the combination of the two companies represents a $2.5 billion potential saving from combined synergies. He also expects the size of the new company to translate into cost drops, particularly in procurement, where a $1 billion cost reduction is expected. However, the company is also expecting in a drop in revenue of 4.9%. HP is planning to shed 15 000 jobs over the next six to nine months, and hopes to offer voluntary retrenchments. Fiorina was not willing to discuss details of the retrenchment packages until the staff had been informed of the details. The new third level of management has been appointed, and the company is in the process of resorting the fourth level into new positions. “I believe that the best teams are forged in the tough times, not the best of times,” said Fiorina. “Consolidation
in the industry was inevitable,” said Capellas. “Now our size, scale and
ability to deliver will [make us successful].” |
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