14 DAY TRIAL // Even though HP already said it was keeping the PC division, it still ended up losing yet another executive, this once the Chief Technology Officer.
The person to leave HP's fold this time is a man who spent the better part of the last decade with the company.
Phil McKinney, the CTO, did not disclose the reasons why he is doing this, not precisely, when he posted a blog about the matter.
He did, however, say that he wasn't retiring, only moving on to look for other opportunities where his talents for innovations would be best tapped into.
“My passion is to help innovators get better at innovating and I’ve spent the better part of the last dozen years fulfilling that mission,” he wrote.
“So what am I going to do after HP? Repeat what I did at HP by helping others get better at innovation. [...] I am also excited that once again, I will be able to take on board seats, advisory roles and mentoring opportunities since I will no longer have to worry about conflict of interest and other corporate restrictions.”
Apparently, while HP will keep making computers, it will focus on enterprise and datacenter products and only make commodity consumer products fully reliant on outside innovations.
Nothing is known about this for certain, of course, but something about the new PC plans must irk the staff if they choose to look for work elsewhere.
“Earlier today, I announced that I will be retiring from HP. This is not the traditional retirement. I’m not planning on spending my days playing golf or sitting around the house driving my wife crazy,” McKinney stated.
“I have far too much passion, energy and ideas to sit on the sidelines. My definition of retirement is the freedom to write, speak, mentor, advise and teach without the restrictions of the traditional employee/corporate structure.”
Phil McKinney, among other people, was behind the creation of the Blackbird, Firebird and Envy 133 PCs, as well as the Pluribus stereo-3D live streaming technology, Vantage and a number of other inventions, hardware and software alike.