Leo Apotheker, CEO of struggling computer firm HP, may face the axe later on Thursday, as the company board meets to discuss his possible replacement. The flurry of rumours, which follows a year of strategic u-turns and missed forecasts, now points to Apotheker’s departure, just as the ill fated webOS project takes another blow.
Software and PC giant HP has unexpectedly killed off its poorly performing webOS mobile devices and announced its exit from the hardware space altogether. Instead the firm will focus on software and services with an eye on cloud computing through the $10bn acquisition of Autonomy.
Leo Apotheker, the head honcho of Palm owner HP, has expanded on his plans to push the webOS platform by pre-installing it on every PC the vendor ships and cloud-enabling the company’s strategy.
Perhaps Palm’s webOS software platform shouldn’t be discounted just yet. Disruptive HP CEO Leo Apotheker raised eyebrows this week with news of a plan to stick the underdog OS on millions of PCs from next year.
HP’s newly installed CEO, Leo Apotheker, has taken a “brave new approach” with the company, which this week posted a five per cent increase in earnings year on year. Whereas former CEO Mark Hurd made HP an efficient technology company by reducing the cost of doing business as well as R&D spend, Apotheker has vowed to increase organic development initiatives.
HP, the owner of handset manufacturer Palm, has announced the most significant update to the webOS platform since its launch in 2009 – webOS 2.0. The latest version of the operating system will debut on the Palm Pre 2 smartphone, which will launch this week.
The new owner of Palm has plans to break into the tablet market in the near future with a device that may well be called the ‘PalmPad’.
US manufacturer HP has revealed plans to develop smartphone, netbook and tablet devices based on the recently acquired Palm webOS platform.
PC giant HP has emerged as Palm’s saving grace, agreeing to pick up the struggling handset vendor for $1.2bn in cash.
Lagging behind its smartphone peers somewhat in terms of app availability, US vendor Palm has announced the expansion of its webOS developer programme to Europe.