HP CEO Meg Whitman was grilled with several questions at a shareholders meeting asking why, in recent years, they haven’t been able to keep up with Apple and what they were going to do about it, Apple Insider reports.
As Apple Insider describes:
For instance, one individual recounted how he had asked Apple co-founder Steve Jobs years ago how his company planned to compete with bigger PC makers like HP. Jobs reportedly told him that Apple products are “just better” and their technology is “years ahead of the competition, especially in mobile.”
“[Jobs has] been correct,” the shareholder noted, pointing out that Apple is now worth more than 10 times HP’s market cap. He went on to say that Apple had succeeded in a space where HP “used to be dominant.”
“Do you think HP was and is innovative enough?” he asked Whitman.
Whitman responded first by acknowledging Apple’s extraordinary accomplishments in recent years.
“We all have to applaud Apple for their success,” she replied. “This is one of the great business renaissance stories of our generation. I have to say Steve Jobs is one of the business leaders of our generation.”
She also reminded the gentleman that HP remains “No. 1 or No. 2 in every business” it competes in, while expressing her continued commitment to R&D and and products.
Another investor questioned HP’s retail policy and why they didn’t have stores like Apple:
Another investor complained that HP doesn’t have convenient retail stores with repair service like Apple does. He pointed out that he has to wait two to three weeks for a new printhead to be shipped from HP’s facility on the East Coast when his printer is broken.
“There are obvious ways that you can improve the way HP appears to the customer,” he added.Whitman replied by highlighting the company’s retail initiative in Brazil. She couldn’t promise that the economics would work out in the United States, but she did say that she was working on improving HP’s website.
It’s clear from this that everyone looks to Apple as an example, even if they might not want to admit it.
