HP

HP focuses on simplifying technology experiences for all of its customers-from individual consumers to the largest businesses. With a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services, and IT infrastructure, HP revenue reached $118.4 billion for the four fiscal quarters ended October 31st, 2008.

The company's corporate headquarters are located in Palo Alto, California, but it is truly a global interest, with 320,000 employees doing business in more than 170 countries around the world, and 69% of its revenue coming from outside the United States. Mark Hurd is currently company chairman, chief executive officer, and president.

Driving Technology Transformation

With the volume of data today increasing faster than our ability to capture and use it, the industry is rapidly shifting to a model where everything can be delivered as a service. People want instantaneous access to content and information that they care about. Meeting this worldwide demand for information and rich digital content will require dynamic, compelling services. The fundamental building blocks of this model will be smarter, more intelligent networks; next-generation data centers; and perhaps most importantly, software that binds all the disparate elements together.

Over the next five years, HP will invest almost $20 billion in R&D around three technology areas it believes have the power to propel the industry forward and improve the way its customers live and work.

• The first is helping enterprise customers transform their IT environments into highly automated, virtualized data centers to dramatically reduce maintenance and operational costs while increasing agility, computing power, and data capacity.
• The second is advancing infrastructure, networks, and devices to create more personalized, seamless computing experiences so people can easily access and share the content and services that matter most to them across any device, from any location, at any time.
• The third is transforming the way content is created and consumed both physically and digitally, which will revolutionize publishing as we know it. For businesses, this will create opportunities to innovate new, rich services and create new business models and sources of revenue. For consumers it will mean greater flexibility to access and publish their content more simply and easily.

Technology Leadership

Building these kinds of experiences requires expertise and innovation across the devices, infrastructure, and services that make them possible. HP delivers a unique portfolio to help its customers apply technology to whatever they want to do:

• Personal systems - HP has a leading portfolio of business and consumer PCs, high-performance workstations, handheld devices, digital entertainment solutions, personal storage, and Internet services that create connected and compelling personal experiences.
• Imaging and printing - HP is leading the digitalt ransformation of printing and offering its customers exciting new ways to be creative, save money, improve productivity, and stand out. For the home, the office, and graphics markets, HP has a wide range of award-winning products and services to help its customers succeed.
• Technology solutions - HP offers a broad range of solutions focused on helping its business customers manage and transform their technology environments for better business outcomes. Business customers can take advantage of its technology and expertise by leveraging its core building blocks-servers and storage, software, and services.
• Services from HP - As a trusted global business partner, HP is focused on solving client challenges through practical innovations that deliver valuable business outcomes. The recent acquisition of EDS has made HP the second-largest technology services company in the world-with 210,000 services employees and operations in 80 countries. This powerful combination of resources and talent gives us the scale and scope to manage its clients' most critical business technology needs.
• HP Financial Services - Helps customers move toward the lowest total cost of ownership throughout the technology lifecycle-from planning and acquiring it all the way to retiring and replacing it. HP makes it easy and economical for them to deploy world-class business technology on terms tailored to their unique needs. HP Labs - HP's exploratory and advanced research group pushes the frontiers of fundamental science. With 23 labs across seven worldwide locations,
• HP Labs focuses high impact research on addressing the most complex challenges facing technology customers in the next decade in the areas of information explosion, the cloud, content transformation, intelligent infrastructure, and sustainability.

More info on the HP website