Like a winning franchise that has a couple of bad seasons, you might say that HP is in "rebuilding" mode.
Actually, you don't have to. Those were the words from new HP CEO Meg Whitman, who delivered gloomy news to investors Monday, reporting a 91 percent drop in net income for the computing giant. Interestingly enough, that beat expectations for the beleaguered company. “This company has been through a lot," Whitman said in an interview with The New York Times.
Most would call that an understatement. Former CEO Léo Apotheker led the company into what was generally considered to be a bad acquisition of Automony, a British software firm. The company's stock price didn't react well. That was followed by the elimination of its nascent tablet computer business, making some wonder if HP would get out of PCs entirely.
But Whitman put that idea to rest on the investor call, saying the company will be focused on internal business development going forward, which includes servers, software, printers – and yes, computers – as well as offering its data-management services to enterprises.
Big acquisitions will be on the back burner, Whitman said. Not only has HP overextended itself with M&A over the last 16 months, Whitman believes too much money has been cut out of research and development, making the company vulnerable to competitors' products.
