Analysts question wisdom of Whitman as HP boss

Analysts have given a cautious welcome to HP's newly installed president and chief executive Meg Whitman, but warned that the former eBay boss needs to concentrate on HP's key assets in software, services and servers.

HP's tumultuous year took another turn on Thursday as Léo Apotheker's brief reign came to an abrupt end after a string of poor financial results and boardroom discontent at the company's direction.

Forrester analyst Pascal Matzke argued that the market is moving away from the traditional siloed structures of hardware, software and services, and that HP should capitalise on this trend under the leadership of its new chief executive.

"Innovation and growth is happening at the intersection of [hardware, software and services] in the cloud, with mobility and business intelligence etc," he told V3.

"HP needs to come to terms with the role it needs to play in this ecosystem. It needs to go back to the drawing board and think about what its vision and mission should be."

Matzke said that Whitman should not reconsider HP's decision to quit the PC business, and instead concentrate on the company's key assets in IT infrastructure management and Autonomy's extensive portfolio, building out a position as a "cloud orchestration" specialist.

"It's about the intersection between software, hardware and services - how you make these things connect and work together with things like middleware and mobile platforms," he said.

"It's when you take HP services and software and part of its existing hardware and server infrastructure. It's where the pieces of the puzzle start to make sense."

Matzke added that Apotheker may have failed because he was not able to articulate clearly or act quickly enough on his vision to move away from HP's PC and webOS businesses.

"He took a long-winded and intellectual approach to explain things, and there was a cultural gap between how he thought he could drive a vision," he said.

"Meg Whitman ran for governor of California, so she knows how to debate and convince people, which was probably what let Léo down. She's also from the Valley so is more culturally in tune with the board and major stakeholders."