On the 1st October 2015, Softcat's CEO Martin Hellawell had the amazing opportunity to interview HP's Chairman, President and CEO Meg Whitman at the historic Faraday Lecture Theatre at the Royal Institution, London. In front of an audience filled with Softcat customers and staff, Meg shared her thoughts on everything from the future of the IT industry to running for public office.
You can view the full video here, however we've picked out the top 12 things we learnt from our Q&A with Meg Whitman below:
1. The UK is HP’s largest business outside of the US
"We have a long proud history in this country. We have some of our very best people in this country."
2. The separation of HP will enable them to succeed in the ‘new style' of business
“I have been in business 35 years; I’ve never seen anything like this. I call it the ‘new style’ of business, and it is the new style of business that’s powered by IT.”
3. Despite splitting, the two companies are bound by their 'founder DNA'
"Effectively, we’re innovators at heart, and we’re all about our partners and customers. We will do anything for our partners and customers. That’s the DNA of the company.”
4. 3D Printing is going to be big for HP Inc.
“I think this has the chance to fundamentally change manufacturing, to change prototyping, and it’s early days but I would keep an eye on it.”
5. Hewlett Packard Enterprise have got some exciting developments planned
“Very simply stated, our strategy is to provide solutions for the new style of IT.”
6. AI and the Internet of Things is going to move to the edge
“Compute is going to move to the edge. As opposed to being a centralised data centre, it’s going to be in the thing; it’s going to be in the car, it’s going to be in the aircraft engine, it’s going to be in the healthcare doctor’s office…”
7. HP are reigniting their innovation engine
“There are a very small number of people who can do truly disruptive innovation. There are lots of people who can do evolutionary innovation.”
8. Keep an eye on Aruba
“There are going to be a lot of changes here and I think it’s a big opportunity, and the workforce loves it.”
9. HP will continue to pioneer around low energy consumption compute
“It’s a whole new paradigm of energy and space efficiency, and my view is, one of the responsibilities we have as a leading manufacturer on the Enterprise side, is less space, more energy efficiency.”
10. Softcat is considered to be one of HP's best partners in the world
“You’re quick to embrace new technology, you figure out what’s right for your customers and you try to bring that to them in a way that you can consume it.”
11. Meg loves a good challenge
“I tend to love teams, I tend to love watching organisations do their thing, and I love watching people being able to do things they couldn’t do before.”
12. Meg travels in style when she's in the UK
“Yesterday we decided that we were going to take the train and the tube, and this of course went through HP like, “What is Meg Whitman doing on the tube?”
