14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that HP's new Chief Executive Officer has adopted an arguably aggressive approach when it comes to investments, the company being supposedly bent on acquiring new software.
As end-users may or may not know, HP is practically the world's greatest supplier of personal computers.
It also managed to see a fairly good performance and development, both in terms of product portfolio as well as finances, under its previous CEO, Mark Hurd.
After Hurd's departure from the firm, Leo Apotheker became the new CEO, and it seems that the company has now made some modifications to its investment plans.
Simply put, HP will be spending significantly more on R&D (research and development) than before, especially on new software, or so it is reported.
HP has already surpassed analyst estimates during the fourth quarter, managing a sales increase of 8.1% over the last quarter.
While last quarter left it with a net income of $2.41 billion, Q4 saw that sum rise to $2.54 billion, by 5.2%.
Likewise, sales grew by 8.1 percent, to $33.3 billion, compared to $32.8 billion during Q3, and most of this was owed to its performance on the enterprise market.
All in all, during the ongoing three-month period, the amount of money that HP spent on research and Development reached $814 million, which shows an increase of 16%.
As such, HP is now looking to buy and develop software for the consumer market, among other things, because it believes this segment will add to its already stellar performance on the enterprise front and further solidify its leading marketing position.
Some of the software will be brought in form external developers via a string of acquisition, while the rest will be developed in HP's own labs.
What remains to be seen is how far HP will go and if it pays off as well as it hopes.