December 12th, 2006
HP's technology investment strategy
Following CEO Mark Hurd and newly retired CFO Bob Wayman, HP CTO Shane Robison discussed the company's $3.6 billion annual R&D technology investment before the crowd of securities analysts this morning in New York City. In keeping with the Hurd era of accountability and management by metrics, Robison was quick to say how technology spending is aligned with the HP's growth strategy and that it positively impacts HP's bottom line. He outlined three major market trends–digital imaging and printing, always on mobility and the next generation datacenter–and then gave a few examples of where HP is innovating in those spaces–HP's Dynamic Smart Cooling for the data centers, dynamic transcoding for video streaming, and scalable inkjet printing technology.
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He also pointed to technology investment with the three market categories by acquisition, such as Mercury, Peregrine, Voodoo, Snapfish and Scitex. He didn't specifically mention HP Labs' investments in more futuristic endeavors, such as quantum science, the semantic Web or cracking the ancient mystery of the Antikythera Mechanism. Those research areas don't exactly fit into making progress on the revenue per employee number in the near term.
Dan Farber, editor-in-chief of CNET News.com, has more than 20 years of experience as an editor and journalist covering technology. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
