14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that there are occurrences that even the greatest of companies can't justify, and HP recently did the unexpected, one might say, by admitting to a certain issue that has been plaguing it in regards to development.
As end-users may or may not know, HP is the world's greatest supplier of personal computers and has also been trying to enter the tablet market recently.
The newest incarnation of its slate plan is known as the Touchpad, a multimedia product running webOS and which we were able to get our hands on during MWC 2011.
Unfortunately, the company can be said to have been very slow in this field, considering that it has been talking about slates since back in early 2010, when the iPad showed up.
Now, during an interview with The Wall Street Journal, HP's CEO said just why HP is having such an arguably rough time with all this.
What Leo Apotheker said was that the root of the problem is how HP somehow manages to take too long between development, product announcement and actual availability.
“HP is an extraordinary company that has managed to keep much of its greatness secret. HP needs to rekindle its innovation capabilities, HP needs to come closer to some customers, and HP needs to tell its story,” he stated.
Apparently, whatever solution HP is cooking up won't be ready in time to accelerate the availability of the Touchpad and whatever other products HP has in the labs right now.
Another issue cited by the company executive were the more or less low number of markets it operates in (outside the US).
The world-leading PC supplier also said it has some weaknesses in terms of software.
“We need to get way more business done in markets other than the U.S. We need to speak to our customers as one H-P. We need to fire up our innovation engine and get our products to market faster,” Apotheker said.
“It's not that we aren't innovative; it's that it takes too long to get to market. We have some weaknesses in our software portfolio. And I think we need to be far more outspoken about what H-P is all about. We didn't do that for many years.”