Apotheker Seeks to Save HP's ‘Lost Soul’ With Software Growth
Leo Apotheker stood before 4,000 Hewlett-Packard Co. colleagues Jan. 31, shielded from the afternoon Bangalore sun by a vast white tent. — Speaking with the accent that betrays his German roots, Apotheker vowed …
Context & Ripple Effects
HP put Leo Apotheker in the chief executive role in September 2010, after his departure from SAP, making software expertise central to how the company would be judged.
By January, coverage was already asking whether Apotheker could reshape HP's image. The pledge to place webOS on every HP PC shipping the following year gives that broader reset a product-level commitment rather than a purely managerial message.
First-order effects
- HP’s PC organization is committed to carrying webOS across its PC shipments in the following year, tying a software platform directly to its largest hardware footprint.
- Apotheker’s software-growth agenda gives HP employees and product groups a clearer corporate priority: software is positioned as part of the company’s recovery, not a side business.
Second-order effects
- HP’s hardware and software teams must coordinate product planning around webOS deployment, making platform integration a practical requirement for the PC business.
- A wider webOS footprint would make HP’s PC buyers a more important audience for the company’s software platform, raising the value of execution across both groups.
Third-order effects
- If HP can translate its PC scale into sustained software adoption, the company’s competitive identity shifts from selling hardware alone toward controlling more of the hardware-and-software experience.
The trend: Large hardware vendors are seeking growth and differentiation by attaching proprietary software platforms to their installed device base.