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Who do you see as your top competitor in the public cloud marketplace?
There is a place for Amazon. There is a place for Microsoft. There is a place for HP. There are things that we do together and things that we do differently.
You mentioned something I haven't heard before: this five-year Meg Whitman [personal] commitment [to turnaround HP]. That five-year commitment -- talk about that and how important it is.
I mean it was important to me coming to the company. I actually asked Meg: "Are you in this [for the long term]?" At the time, there was some concern that, you know, depending how the election goes, she might end up in the cabinet or in government. She was very clear to me when I spoke to her that she is in this for the long haul. She has now repeated publicly that she is in this for five years. And, it is public information that she is working for a dollar.
What does that five-year commitment say to where the company is going?
I think it says a lot. I think she [Whitman] believes that we are going to be a phenomenal company again. I think we are a strong company. We are very profitable. This is not like IBM in 1989 where the company had to borrow money to pay the employees. We have $5 billion in free cash flow. It is a profitable company. We have great products. We have great technology. But, it is going to take a little while for us to get back to where everybody wants us to be, where we want to be as "a" or "the" leader in the technology industry. And I think Meg [Whitman] believes that, but she also believes it is going to take time. And, she has committed this amount of time to make that happen.
I got a little nervous when I saw in the 10K the possible sale of underperforming businesses. My first question was: Are we going back to a situation where HP may look at selling off the personal systems business or the printing business? What is HP's commitment to the personal systems business?
We are committed to the personal systems business. We are committed to the printing business. We are committed to the PC business. Meg [Whitman] has said this. I am going to repeat that. The stuff that you see in the 10K is responsible stuff that any company should always be doing: looking at the things that fit, looking at the things that don't. But, we have said repeatedly over the last year that we are absolutely committed to the PC business. We are spending tons of money building new [innovative] products.
NEXT: HP's Top Strategist On The Competitive Positioning Versus Apple
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