Hewlett-Packard has named former Microsoft executive Bill Veghte to lead the company’s $3.6 billion Software and Solutions business unit.
Veghte, who was instrumental in building Microsoft’s Office software franchise and in launching Windows 7, will start work at HP May 17. He will report to Ann Livermore, executive vice president, HP Enterprise Business, HP said Wednesday.
HP Software and Solutions includes HP’s IT management, information management, business intelligence, and communications and media product lines.
“Bill has built a reputation as an experienced business leader with a proven track record of driving growth and innovation,” Livermore said in a statement. “Expanding our Software and Solutions business is critical to HP, and Bill’s broad experience across sales, marketing and engineering will be instrumental in driving this business forward and in strengthening our strategic partnerships with our clients.”
"Hurd has talked about software being the glue to the converged infrastructure strategy," said John Convery, executive vice president of vendor relations and marketing at Denali Advanced Integration, a Redmond, Wash.-based HP partner. "This is an indication of just how critically important software is in the HP portfolio."
Veghte joined Microsoft in 1990 and held a number of positions in his nearly 20 years at the software giant. Just before his departure in January Veghte played a critical role in launching Windows 7 in the wake of the Windows Vista debacle.
Veghte, then senior vice president in Microsoft’s Windows division, worked alongside Steven Sinofsky, vice president of the Windows engineering group. In July Sinofsky was promoted to the new position of president of the reorganized Windows division and Microsoft said Veghte would be moving to an undetermined leadership position. But that didn’t happen and Veghte left to explore other career options.
Earlier in his tenure at Microsoft Veghte, as an associate product manager, helped build Microsoft Office from a disparate collection of desktop applications into the industry-dominating application suite -- not to mention one of Microsoft’s biggest cash cows -- it has become. He also helped manage the development of Windows 98, and the development and marketing of Windows Server.
Perhaps most germane to his new HP job, Veghte at one point was responsible for managing Microsoft sales, services and marketing for all of North America, growing that business by nearly $2 billion and boosting customer and partner satisfaction by 18 percent, according to Veghte’s official HP biography.
