New HP head not in a rush

In his first encounter with Wall Street analysts as HP's new leader, incoming CEO Mark Hurd, refused to map out his plans for the company's direction. Hurd said he would spend the next few months learning about HP before he crafted a strategy for running it.

Analysts on the conference call last week asked Hurd if he would consider breaking up HP, by spinning off its lucrative printing group or struggling PC division. Hurd said he needed more time to study HP, but he suggested he would prefer to appease shareholders looking for investment gains by improving HP's overall performance rather than by selling off pieces of the firm. HP Chairman Patricia Dunn repeated the board's previous statements that HP's CEO switch is about changing the company's operational performance, not its strategy.

Hurd comes to HP with a reputation as a cost-cutter devoted to bottom-line efficiencies. He brushed aside a question about whether he would consider workforce reductions, saying he needed more time to determine that, but he said operational excellence would be his priority.

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In his first encounter with Wall Street analysts as HP's new leader, incoming CEO Mark Hurd, refused to map out his plans for the company's direction. Hurd said he would spend the next few months learning about HP before he crafted a strategy for running it.

Analysts on the conference call last week asked Hurd if he would consider breaking up HP, by spinning off its lucrative printing group or struggling PC division. Hurd said he needed more time to study HP, but he suggested he would prefer to appease shareholders looking for investment gains by improving HP's overall performance rather than by selling off pieces of the firm. HP Chairman Patricia Dunn repeated the board's previous statements that HP's CEO switch is about changing the company's operational performance, not its strategy.

Hurd comes to HP with a reputation as a cost-cutter devoted to bottom-line efficiencies. He brushed aside a question about whether he would consider workforce reductions, saying he needed more time to determine that, but he said operational excellence would be his priority.

HP has already shed several executives who didn't live up to expectations: Then-CEO Carly Fiorina fired three major sales executives last year after HP suffered through a poor quarter. HP has also cut more than 17,000 jobs since it acquired Compaq in 2002.

Several of HP's top managers were likely candidates for the CEO job, including storage, servers and services group head Ann Livermore and printing and imaging business head Vyomesh Joshi. Hurd deflected a question about how he would retain such executives, and about his plans for HP's senior leadership. "I believe very much in organic promotion," he said.

Cowley is a correspondent with the IDG News Service.

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