HP to investors: "We're an Internet company, too"
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HWP - news), best known for its computers and printers, told investors on Wednesday it wants to be known as an Internet company, too.
Hewlett-Packard has folded many of its hardware and software units into a new Internet-focused division -- the biggest division within the company -- and says it will announce a series of products and alliances over the next several months that will advance and simplify the existing state of online business.
Nick Earle, director of marketing at the new division, named the Enterprise Computing Solutions Organization, said the company has had a hard time articulating its plans to adapt to the Internet, but added, ''It hasn't just been a problem of message alone. There was also a problem of vision.''
Earle said the company is now mobilized around an ''Internet Chapter 2'' vision, which aims to put more business services such as banking online, in a way that is simple for consumers to access in a single location.
The company is currently working on building the software that will enable more companies to build their own Internet portals -- popular hubs of online information -- and offer more personalized services such as health care information on the Internet.
''We are predicting the next wave of portals will be business portals,'' Earle said at the NationsBanc Montgomery Securities Technology Week conference here. ''There will be a mass proliferation of services.''
In an interview after his presentation, Earle said much of the company's work will focus on streamlining business on the Internet.
''I think the biggest problem with the Internet today is that there is too much of it,'' he said.
''Every day there are hundreds of new sites. It's becoming a nightmare. At some point there has to be some order to the chaos. I don't want to have to spend eight hours a day using the Internet. I want someone to do it for me.''
Asia is tanking so far tonite....
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