In First Company-Wide Email, Meg Whitman Says HP Must Focus On Their Mission

In First Company-Wide Email, Meg Whitman Says HP Must Focus On Their Mission:Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman plans to stick by strategies set in motion by her predecessor, Leo Apotheker, betting that investors prefer steady leadership to another unsettling change of course.Whitman, in her first interview as Hewlett-Packard’s CEO, said the company stands by plans to acquire U.K. software marker Autonomy Corp. for $10.3 billion. The company also will continue to explore whether to sell or spin off the personal-computer division, she said. Those moves were announced on Aug. 18.“It does not signal a change in the strategy,” Whitman said yesterday of her appointment. “We are behind the actions that were taken on Aug. 18. We are firmly committed to Autonomy.”
Whitman is hewing to those plans to avoid alienating shareholders who were fed up with the about-faces that characterized Apotheker’s reign. Still, Hewlett-Packard is overpaying for Autonomy and it shouldn’t have announced a possible PC unit sale without a concrete plan in place, said Chris Whitmore, an analyst at Deutsche Bank AG.“We’re going to get more of the same from a Meg Whitman- led HP as we did from a Leo-led HP,” said Whitmore, who is based in San Francisco and has a “sell” rating on Hewlett- Packard. “The board isn’t going to change the strategy and is going to continue down this path, which frankly was the fear.”