HP’s Executive Shakeup to Take on Lenovo in China
The PC may be on its deathbed in the US, but China is still a lucrative market for a broad range of devices, including the personal computer. It’s in China Hewlett-Packard is focusing its PC and printing business, resulting in a high level shakeup at the company. Today HP announced changes in its executive lineup in order to penetrate the Chinese market and bring life to its PC business.
Todd Bradley will step down as HP’s head of the PC and printing unit and will now serve as the company’s executive vice president of strategic growth initiatives and will focus on growing HP’s footprint in China, find “partnership opportunities with early-stage companies,” and develop channel partners.
Bradley’s previous position will be filled up by Dion Weisler, HP’s senior vice president of PC and printer in its Asia Pacific and Japan business. Before working at HP, Weisler served as Lenovo’s chief operating officer for mobile and digital home groups and before that he was an exec at Acer.
Both Bradley and Weisler will directly report to HP CEO Meg Whitman.
This shakeup puts Bradley and Weisler in a position to directly compete with Lenovo, who has been tailing HP closely in terms of global reach. Lenovo’s in a much better position to expand its business in Asia, but HP could be looking to take advantage of Lenovo’s dropping market share, down by 12 percent year-over-year.
But Lenovo is expanding further into the enterprise, where HP is also bulking up its services, partnerships and open source communities. Strategic partnerships will be equally as important for Lenovo, who recently partnered with EMC to offer storage solutions in the US. Lenovo is also upping efforts for its smartphone business in the US, a market HP has missed out on.
HP is counting on two things to revive its PC business. First, the demise of Microsoft’s Windows Vista to revive its PC business. Second, HP hopes more people will be interested in its new line of laptops, hybrids and all-in-one desktop PCs. HP has been hit hard with the growing interest in tablets and smartphones over laptops and desktop PCs, something Lenovo has yet to experience.
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