HP promises PSG innovation
After emerging on the other side of a turbulent 2011, HP PSG (Personal Systems Group) today told partners to expect a wave of product innovation in the coming months.
The vendor was somewhat cagey about talking about last year’s announcement from ex-CEO Leo Apotheker about spinning off PSG as part of plans to make HP more software and services led. After a “strategic review”, the firm decided to keep the business and said goodbye to Apotheker.
But speaking at today’s HP Global Partner Conference, Todd Bradley, executive VP of HP PSG promised we would see “an enormous amount of innovation in the tablet and ultrathin space,” referring to new ultrabooks like its Folio 13 and Envy 14 Spectre (pictured). He added that the firm was working on a Windows 8-based tablet, which will be available in the autumn.“You will see a broader set of products launched throughout the year… you will see we are more aggressive, competitively than we’ve ever been,” he said.
However, Bradley wouldn’t be drawn on the topic of smartphones. When questioned, he said: “Frankly we have some strategic work to do on as to what to do in the smartphone space and we’re not prepared to talk about that now.”
Many PSG partners attending the conference are looking for reassurances from HP that the firm is back on track. “We want to see stability,” one PSG partner told Channel Pro, describing 2011 as “crazy.”
While admitting that last year’s strategic review of the business “certainly created enormous amounts of confusion for both PSG and also impacted our server business”, Bradley appeared to place the blame at the door of both its competitors and the media: “We had to recover from some of the misinformation that was both published in the press and probably supported by our competitors,” he told reporters.
However, he went on to say that after completing its analysis, “we have shown a deeper commitment than ever to our partner business.”
The view was reiterated by Dave Donatelli, executive VP and general manager of Enterprise Servers, Storage, Networking (ESSN) and Technology Services, who added: “Our commitment to our partners is deep and stronger than ever.”
