Why Both HPs Had a Pivotal Year

Hewlett-Packard Co., founded way back in 1939, has been one of the few true survivors in the volatile information technology products and services business. In 2015, the company split into two entities: HP Enterprise, which develops, makes and services all the servers, storage, networking and other enterprise IT hardware and software needed to run data centers; and HP Inc., which develops and builds business and consumer-oriented personal computers, workstations, printers and other devices. Both have continued to do well in their markets. In November 2019, Xerox made a surprising bid to buy HPI for $35 billion. The company has resisted, but who knows where it’s going to end up? We at eWEEK are watching closely. Meanwhile, let’s take a look at what HP did in the last 12 months.

Aug. 23, 2019: Outgoing CEO Dion Weisler did an excellent job reviving HP Inc., and he’s leaving the company in the capable hands of Enrique Lores, who rebuilt the company’s printing and imaging businesses. Earlier on the HP Enterprise side, Antonio Neri was the successor to Meg Whitman in 2017, who built the company back up after a six-year stint as CEO.

April 18, 2019: In its new PCs, HPI has blended elements that are typically focused on consumers, such as Apple-like designs, with features that normally target only corporate users—such as security—across their lines.

Sept. 19, 2019: Rather than the HP Dragonfly tagline being “Lighter Than Air,” which it isn’t, it should be “Impressive Laptop,” which it is. It has been awhile since any PC OEM has created what I think is full-on halo product in the business space, but HP has done this. A halo product is one that sets a high bar and is a showcase of what a company can do. These products tend to be technological powerhouses, and few of us mortals ever get to use them, but those who know about them dream about owning one.

Oct. 15, 2019: HP’s latest mobile PC is basically a desktop workstation masquerading as a power laptop, as its 32GB of RAM and half-terabyte of storage will testify. Great for general business use and storing/presenting video and presentations of all kinds.

June 25, 2019: Hewlett Packard Enterprise has followed convention by adding to its core hybrid cloud portfolio with what it calls “improved automation, workload-optimized solutions, and a consistent user-control experience across clouds.” These updates include extending intelligence-driven operations and composability across its portfolio, adding new workload-optimized infrastructure and expanding choice of clouds through partnerships with Google Cloud and Equinix.

May 29, 2019: On paper, HPE’s purchase of Cray for about $1.3 billion makes eminent strategic sense. But it remains to be seen as to whether the merger works the way it was drawn up.

May 2, 2019: At the opening of its new San Jose, Calif. headquarters HPE showed off advances in security, big data and artificial intelligence as well as a new approach to wooing big corporate customers.

Jan. 18, 2019: The combination of Datera’s Data Services Platform and HPE’s well-established server hardware portfolio brings the software-defined trend to enterprise-class data storage.

Jan. 24, 2020: Why it would be a good marketing idea for major IT companies such as HP to have a definitive product that showcases all their new tech in one device.