HP CEO Mark Hurd: Never Enough
By Damon Poeter, ChannelWeb
April 23, 2010
Page 1 of 5

Mark Hurd is mapping out Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ)'s plans for world conquest. The HP CEO's eyes narrow when he's asked about economic generalities or rival companies, but become expansive and animated once more as he artfully swings an answer back to the topic he cares most about--HP's strategy for capturing market share through technology leadership, operational clout and channel relationships.

Hurd is holding court in HP's simple but comfortably appointed boardroom at the company's Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters on a sunny day in mid-March. The boardroom's doors open out to a terraced garden on the second floor of the building. A light breeze wafting in across the greenery offers some relief from the false spring heat that cooks the parking lot asphalt just a few yards away.

HP has become the largest IT company in the world in terms of revenue since Hurd took over as CEO in March 2005, capturing the top spot on the strength of high-profile acquisitions like Mercury Interactive in 2006 and EDS in 2008, while doubling down on its reseller channel engagements with its increasingly muscular Solution Partners Organization (SPO).

Predictably, people want to hear what Hurd has to say on any number of big-picture subjects. He's generally wary about obliging them.

"I'm not an economist," Hurd said, when asked to assess the strength of the economic recovery following perhaps the deepest global recession since the 1930s. "I read, I look at numbers and all that kind of stuff," he allowed, seemingly puzzled as to why anybody would care about his opinion of macroeconomic conditions.

Hurd is no celebrity CEO. He performs ably when keynoting a major public event, but only does so rarely. He's unlikely to ever make bold predictions about a rival's product, as Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer famously did when he laughed off the chances for the iPhone's success. Even on HP's quarterly earnings calls, Hurd steers well clear of big-picture pronouncements of the kind recently made by Intel CEO Paul Otellini, who declared during an April chat with financial analysts that the IT industry "has nearly fully recovered."

"I think the economy is better than it was in 2009. We went into 2010 thinking it would be a better year than 2009. That might not sound like the boldest statement to make," Hurd said guardedly. His forward-looking outlook is as cautious as it gets.

"I'm not sure that what you see today isn't what you're going to see more of for the rest of 2010. I think the hope that the second half of 2010 is materially better than the beginning of 2010, it's hard to find indicators that say that.

"And I think that as much as you may want to hear positive people making statements like that on TV, the numbers tend to say we've had some improvement, but what we have [for the second half of 2010] is more of what we've got."

There's not much material there for breathless headlines, but Hurd just doesn't seem interested in talking about factors he can't directly control. The overall size of the market for high-tech products and services is a distraction--it's only when the talk turns to HP's present and future share of specific segments within that market that Hurd digs in his heels.

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