HP's Vision

Leo Apotheker took center stage yesterday for the first time since taking over as CEO of the World's largest technology company (by revenue) last November. Chris O'Brien (the business editor of the Mercury News) was not too impressed.

It seems to me that Leo Apotheker is able to put together a cohesive strategy around HP's vast portfolio. The fact that he dismissed the possible acquisition of SAP saying, "We don't need to own a big transactional application platform," says a lot about his focus.

There is a Software Advice blog post that mentions possible acquisitions by HP - with SAP leading the list. It would be interesting to see the results of their survey on when/who people think will be HP's next acquisition.

HP is poised to lead the technology universe into the world of cloud computing. Sun attempted to do that many years ago and failed. Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and, now, HP are attempting to grab a piece of this pie. Sun's failure was in the execution of its vision. Often times, Sun tended to place the cart before the horse. That is, the execs would go up on stage and articulate a grandiose vision and then attempt to build the technologies towards that vision. HP, on the other hand, has been building up its portfolio of the various pieces in the puzzle. Yesterday, they finally came out and told us how they all fit together.

The next 6-12 months will tell us who comes out ahead in this battle that is being played out in the open. As a follow up to my earlier blog post (on HP vs Oracle), I think we are half time now and HP is leading by a touchdown.