And after the departure of former CEO, Mark Hurd, last month, the thinking of industry analysts is that HP is named after one of its heads of division and regarded as its next CEO.
Instead, HP has become a stranger again. Apotheker, whose appointment was announced after markets closed on Thursday, HP brings extensive experience in enterprise software, a world view that is less US-centric, and the ability to move into the world economy in five languages, English, Dutch, French, German and Hebrew.
When choosing Apotheker, analysts believe that HP is telling the world that his future, both in its consumer businesses and products company, is in the software.
Apotheker's appointment also includes a message to his emerging nemesis, Oracle Corp.
With the acquisition of Sun Microsystems earlier this year, Oracle moved into the hardware. And to help shape this direction, Oracle quickly hired Hurd as co-president after he left HP in the wake of a scandal involving strange expense reports and a B-movie actress
SAP, a company that represented more than 20 years of professional life Apotheker, is harder competitor of Oracle ERP.
To drive home the point that Oracle is in the sights of HP, HP also said Ray Lane, former COO and president of Oracle and partner now manager of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, is a new board member HP policy, designated as non-executive chairman.
HP, as the largest IT company in the world by revenue, Oracle has more to worry about. But Apotheker's appointment will lead to much speculation about the acquisition of HP's future strategy, and if you can aim more at enterprise software companies, not only to challenge IBM and Oracle, but good.
Analysts believe that the software will be the focus of HP's strategy.
"One part of the fastest growing and most profitable of HP has been its software business," said Frank Gillette, an analyst at Forrester Research. "Software is where magic and differentiation is created."
Apotheker "is well versed in running a large software company size, a global software company, to scale," said Crawford Del Prete, an analyst at IDC. future HP will use the software to help customers solve business problems "and that's really what SAP did for 20 years, when he was there," he said.
In its announcement of the HP CEO Apotheker said record in driving growth for SAP software and ID efforts, an area that some analysts believe is dismissed during the term of Hurd.
If the selection of HP's executive director was a horse race, the odds are greatly favored internal candidates as Ann Livermore, who heads the company's business, and Todd Bradley, who heads the division of PC.
Carly Fiorina, who preceded Hurd was also a stranger. Hurd was not on the short list of candidates for jobs from NCR Corp., which had revenues that were just part of HP.
The only thing sure about HP and its general director appointments is that the company has not lost its capacity to surprise.
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