CEO: HP To Put Palm WebOS On Printers

“It really has more to do with the intellectual property and the fact that when you look across the HP ecosystem of interconnected devices, it is a large family of devices and we think of printers, you’ve now got a whole series of Web-connected printers, and as they connect to the Web, [they] need an OS,” he said.

He also hinted that HP could use Palm’s app store for printers and other devices.

The Palm acquisition, which is still pending, was one of several deals that were topics of discussion during the earnings call. Hurd noted that HP’s $2.7 billion (£1.9bn) deal for networking vendor 3Com closed in April 12, and that since that time, 3Com had added about $50 million (£35m) in revenue to HP’s bottom line in the second quarter.

He reiterated that a key benefit is that by combining HP’s ProCurve products and VirtualConnect technology with 3Com’s portfolio, HP will have a strong presence not only on the edge of the network, but also in the data centre.

Hurd also countered a question from analyst who suggested that HP’s $13.9 billion (£9.7bn) acquisition of services company EDS was not working out as planned, as growth in services is not as fast as in other divisions. He said that EDS — now called HP Enterprise Services — gives the company a stronger services arm.

“We feel really good about the services business,” he said.

Strong HP Plans More Acquisitions

Cathie Lesjak, HP’s chief financial officer, suggested that HP’s acquisitions won’t end with Palm.

Overall, HP had a strong quarter, earning $2.2 billion (£1.5bn) in profits on $30.8 billion (£21.6bn) in revenue, significant jumps over the same time last year, when the worldwide recession was in full swing. During that quarter, the company earned $1.7 billion (£1.2bn) on $27.4 billion (£19.2bn) in revenues.

HP saw a 28 percent jump in profit and 13 percent increase in revenue.

Hurd said the strong performances were felt in each segment of HP’s product portfolio, and in each region.

The strong numbers also convinced HP to up its revenue targets for the year, to 8 to 9 percent over 2009. For the current quarter, HP is expecting revenue of between around $30 billion (£20bn).