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Talk about HP's PSG product march. What are the new products we will see in the next few months that show the viability of the business?
You just saw two weeks ago one of the most significant all-in-one [desktop] road maps that anybody in the industry has done. Ultra-thin notebooks are very vibrant. I 'm going to New York tomorrow to do a workstation customer council. Our workstation guys I think are the best in the industry. When you look at the innovation that they have created: the ability for a partner to go take a workstation and sell up around that workstation, and the simplicity with which you can expand it.
We are actually introducing some of that same engineering expertise -- probably more than we have done historically -- into our PC engineering teams. So that same thought process around how we made workstations so expandable, so accessible, we now make that available in our PC business. There is a very cool all-in-one workstation coming out in the first quarter.
I'm as optimistic as I was six years ago with a bigger platform to build on. There are lots of people that are good predictors of the past. Our focus is how we build for the future with our partners.
It has been a pretty tumultuous couple of weeks in the wake of the HP PSG announcement. Any regrets?
I don't know if I would classify it as a regret. My only [concern] is that we can't get the communication out fast enough and crisp enough so people don't lose momentum and waste time.
What is your final message to partners?
Win with HP PSG. My message to partners is no different than it has ever been. You won with PSG for the last six years. You will win with PSG in the future. We will support the guys that support us, and we will do it as aggressively as we can do it.
As we have gone through these changes, a real focus now for me and DiFranco is to really get out and crank up hard with partners and their customers to help clarify this message as quickly as we can. I think the biggest benefit we have is when we can sit with our partners and customers and give them clarity around what we are doing.
The big thing is the team of people that built PSG into what it is today, that built the relationships, the success with our partners, are all committed to do this going forward.
How are PSG employees feeling?
You know the interesting thing is employees are excited. I have probably talked to 5,000 employees in the last two weeks. Employees are psyched. They just want to get through the uncertainty and win.
