HP CEO Mark Hurd: Never Enough
By Damon Poeter, ChannelWeb
April 23, 2010
Page 5 of 5
Answering The Critics
HP (NYSE:HPQ) has some of the most dedicated channel partners in the IT industry. Partners like Denali Advanced Integration, a Redmond, Wash.-based solution provider that is a "loyal HP foot soldier," according to John Convery, executive vice president of vendor relations and marketing.

"We set all-time records for sales with HP in our first quarter," Convery said. "Our pipeline has never been more robust. This is because of the team effort from all the HP support team starting at the top with Mark Hurd."

But HP has its critics in the channel as well. For every AdvizeX Technologies that's ready to decouple from Cisco, there may be several partners who want to keep their options open. One solution provider who asked not to be named said the pressure from HP and Cisco to pick sides was "reaching a fever pitch."

There are also concerns in the industry that initiatives like HP's Converged Infrastructure and Cisco's Unified Computing could lead to a new siloing of the data center and vendor lock-in. That development could come at the expense of standards-based interoperability between different vendors' hardware and software.

"I suspect that there will still be interoperability at a low level. But clearly, if customers want their higher-level functions to work across the enterprise, they'll have to take sides, too," said Roger Kay, principal analyst for Endpoint Technologies Associates.

Hurd makes the case that such concerns should be outweighed by the advantages inherent in having a solution set for the data center that is simple to implement.

"I'm a big believer that simple is good," he said, speaking as much about his core business philosophy as HP's ambitions for the data center. "Leadership is not about making things complicated. Great things get done when you can break things into small pieces that are understandable and actionable. And I think the same thing's true in technology.

"When you go in and tell somebody, 'I have this great solution for you, but it's so complicated that nobody can understand it and/or imagine getting it implemented,' I'm not sure if that's a good thing. So I actually believe that simplicity of solutions, simplicity of service, simplicity of technology is a big asset."

Meanwhile, smaller HP partners have at times run into trouble trying to get answers from Fortress HP. In mid-2009, the company issued a mandate to channel partners that they pay $120 to take an anti-bribery training course. Many smaller partners were miffed at the demand, worried less about the relatively small sum of money than the way the program was communicated to them.

Add in the recent news that HP's Moscow offices were raided by Russian authorities as part of a joint Russian and German bribery investigation, and the taste in some partners' mouths can start getting pretty bitter.

Hurd says he is aware of the line HP walks as such an enormous organization. He calls HP's scale "a strange friend." On the one hand, HP's size means it can offer a tremendous portfolio of products and services with support from a massive sales force. But it can also mean that it's difficult for partners and customers to navigate through multiple organizational layers to get things done.

"The very same fact can be an asset or a liability. Our objective is to make it an asset," he said.

Given Hurd's success at righting the HP ship following several down years, it can be easy to forget he had no background in such a giant organization prior to taking the reins. He spent 25 years at NCR, a manufacturer of computer kiosks, POS terminals, ATMs and other business products. As CEO of NCR in his final two years, he grew yearly revenue and profits to new heights--but those figures are still dwarfed by the money HP generates in a single quarter.

There is a sense with Hurd that he is relentlessly trying to make HP leaner and meaner, to make it operate with the nimbleness and energy of a much smaller company. Since taking over, he hasn't been shy about laying people off. He's been equally ruthless about consolidating HP's own IT infrastructure, reducing the number of data centers from 85 down to six.

Hurd's methods haven't pleased everybody at HP. In a recent interview with Forbes, he admitted, "Not everybody is comfortable with being pushed." Few would argue, though, that Hurd doesn't push himself the hardest of all.

As he strides purposefully into HP's boardroom on this early spring day, he spends the bare minimum of time on introductory handshakes before settling in for business--"What can I do for you now?" When the meeting is over, he's just as quick to his feet, ready to charge down the corridor toward the next piece of HP business that demands his attention.

Hurd is driven at HP, he says, because he doesn't want to "drive out of the parking lot the last time, whenever that is, and say, 'I just wish I'd done this, this, this, this and this.'

"When I drove out of the parking lot of my last company, the only other company I've worked for in my career, I was sad. I didn't want to leave. But the one thing I can tell you without any doubt is, I left everything I had on the field. And I did everything I could to get that company in the absolute best position I could to win. And that's how I feel."

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