惠普風光不再 但復興希望猶存

In 2005, when Carol Loomis wrote one of her signature, exhaustive articles for Fortune, this one about Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina’s troubled acquisition of Compaq, she quoted a Wall Street analyst who predicted that HP HP -5.89% would one day be split up.

2005年，卡羅爾·盧米斯爲《財富》雜誌(Fortune)撰寫了一篇惠普公司(HP)首席執行官卡莉o菲奧莉娜收購康柏公司(Compaq)的計劃陷於困境的詳盡報道。在這篇堪稱其代表作的文章中，她援引了一位華爾街分析師的預測：惠普終有一日會被拆分。

That analyst, Steven Milunovich, left the research business for a time. But he’s back at it again, now working at UBS, where he covers enterprise technology companies—that is, companies that sell technology to other companies as opposed to consumers. Milunovich is still paying careful attention to HP, which announced last week that it is splitting its consumer PC and printer businesses (to be called HP Inc) from its enterprise hardware and software lines (to be known as Hewlett-Packard Enterprise).

這位名叫史蒂芬o米盧諾維奇的分析師一度離開研究領域。但他如今又回來了。目前，米盧諾維奇供職於瑞銀集團(UBS)，負責追蹤企業級科技公司，也就是那些將技術賣給其他公司，而不是消費者的公司。他仍然密切注意惠普的動向。該公司上週宣佈了一項分拆計劃：惠普將一分爲二，一個是專注從事消費PC和打印機業務的惠普公司(HP Inc)，另一個是從事企業級硬件和軟件業務的惠普企業公司(Hewlett-Packard Enterprise)。

Reaction to the spin-off, beyond general praise for spin-offs, has been tepid. Writing in The New York Times over the weekend, James Stewart walks through HP’s generally weak prospects on both sides of its house. In his weekly “Monday Note,” Jean-Louis Gassée provides outstanding historical commentary on HP’s culture, calling the company today a “tired conglomeration.”

企業分拆通常能夠贏得一片喝彩聲，但這一次，各方的反映一直不溫不火。詹姆斯o斯圖爾特上週末發表於《紐約時報》(The New York Times)的文章，總體上看淡這兩家公司的發展前景。在每週更新一次的博客《週一觀察》(Monday Note)中，讓-路易斯o蓋瑟從歷史的角度，對惠普的文化進行了一番精彩評論，聲稱這家公司如今是一個“疲憊的混合體”

As for Milunovich, he finds some reasons for guarded optimism about HP. I reached him at his desk in New York last week. Below is an edited version of our conversation.

米盧諾維奇則發現了一些讓他對惠普保持謹慎樂觀的原因。上週，我來到他的紐約辦公室。以下是經過編輯的對話內容：

I wrote in an essay on the day the split was announced that HP didn’t much matter anymore, at least not the way it used to. Do you agree?

我在拆分宣佈的當天寫了一篇文章，說惠普不再是一家舉足輕重的公司，至少沒有過去那般重要。你同意嗎？

HP’s obviously lost a lot of luster. It’s not the company it once was. But it is one of the largest consumer computing companies. Clearly Apple AAPL -0.91% has surpassed it. But HP is very close to being the number-one PC company globally. They are the premier printing company. Where they have faded is on the enterprise side, and the innovation halo they once had is long gone. But I wouldn’t say it doesn’t matter. I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration.

惠普的招牌顯然有點褪色。它已經不是過去那個惠普了。但惠普仍然是世界上最大的消費計算公司之一。當然目前蘋果(Apple)已經超越它了。不過，惠普距離全球頭號PC廠商的位置非常接近。它依然是一家卓越的打印機公司。儘管它在企業級市場名聲漸暗，曾經擁有的創新光環早已逝去。但我不會說，惠普現在無足輕重。我認爲，這種看法有點誇張了。

Talk about your 2005 prediction.

說說你2005年的預測。

I apparently predicted that printers would be peeled off from PCs. I’ve always been a big believer in focus. It’s the most powerful factor in business. In the case of HP we always felt it was difficult being the premier consumer and enterprise company. Microsoft MSFT -0.86% clearly has had similar issues. In HP’s case there’s no silver bullet. No one unit is being held back. But it doesn’t encourage focus. I would argue that they should have done this years ago.

我當時預測說，打印機業務將從PC業務中剝離。我一直非常信奉“聚焦”(focus)。它是影響企業發展的最強大的因素。我們總是覺得，惠普要想同時成爲一流的消費技術和企業技術公司，的確很有難度。微軟(Microsoft)顯然也有過類似的問題。就惠普的情況而言，沒有一勞永逸的高招。該公司目前還沒有收縮任何一個部門。但這不利於激勵“聚焦”。我認爲他們早在幾年前就該做這件事了。

As you note, HP isn’t separating printers and PCs, meaning the Compaq acquisition is remaining somewhat intact.

正如你所說，惠普並沒有把打印機和PC業務分離開來，這意味着早年收購的康柏資產基本上原封未動。

I’d argue that the Compaq acquisition wasn’t so bad. If you were going to try to be a major computer company, the Compaq deal made some sense. It’s not unlike the rumored EMC EMC -1.57% and HP combination currently [rumored], which could make some sense. Back then HP was weak in x86 systems [a type of computing based on Intel processors] and storage. Compaq gave them both. Clearly they would not be in the market position they are in today if they hadn’t done that acquisition.

我認爲，對康柏的收購併沒有那麼糟糕。如果你試圖成爲一家大型電腦公司，收購康柏順理成章。這跟目前傳說中的EMC和惠普合併一案並沒有什麼區別，都是講得通的。當時，惠普在x86系統（一種基於英特爾處理器的計算程序）和存儲器方面的技術比較薄弱。康柏給了他們這兩項技術。顯然，要是當初沒有收購康柏，惠普就不可能擁有如今的市場地位。

What is your assessment of HP’s management?

你對惠普的管理層有何評價？

They’ve lost so much talent over the years. I don’t think it can ever be what it once was. But I do believe CEO Meg Whitman has made improvements. We did a conference call recently with Mohamad Ali, HP’s chief strategist. Meg has brought to HP this “Playing to Win” approach, which Procter & Gamble PG -1.56% uses. She learned it there because [P&G CEO] A.G. Lafley used it in the 2000s. They have this strategic framework. I had never heard boo about this. It’s nine to 12 months old. I heard she had an offsite with the top 100 or so managers at HP. And she said, “I want you all to read this book. I’m going to test you on it.” The flight attendants noticed. They wanted to know why everybody on this flight to Las Vegas was reading the same book. It gives you a sense of the discipline there.

這些年來，他們失去了很多人才。我認爲，惠普的管理已經無法企及昔日的水平。但我的確相信，CEO梅格o惠特曼已經做了一些改進。最近，我們跟惠普首席戰略官穆罕默德o阿里進行了一場電話會議。梅格給惠普引入了寶潔公司(Procter & Gamble)率先使用的“爲勝利而戰”(Playing to Win)戰略。她是在那裏學到的，因爲寶潔CEO雷富禮曾經在2000年代使用過這種方式。他們擁有這樣的戰略框架。我還沒有聽說過有人對這種理念不屑一顧。它已經被應用了大約9到12個月。我聽說，她和惠普的約100名高層在異地開了一個會。她說，“我希望大家都來閱讀這本書。我會考考你們對它的理解程度。”飛機上的空姐注意到了。她們想知道在這趟飛往拉斯維加斯的航班上，爲什麼每位乘客都在閱讀同一本書。由此可見，惠普管理層還是很有紀律意識的。

HP has been talking a lot about the cloud lately, but I don’t have a sense of how its cloud computing strategy is different from the competition, several of whom have been at it longer than HP.

惠普最近一直在談論雲計算，但我並沒有感覺到它的雲計算戰略跟競爭對手有什麼不同之處，不少競爭對手進入這一領域的時間都要比惠普更長一些。

In general, observers are unclear. We talked recently to Bill Veghte [the head of HP’s enterprise group and a longtime Microsoft executive]. They’ve had three different management teams running their cloud strategy. The IT has been rebranded as Helion. It has several features, many of which aren’t available yet. So, for HP, that is a work in progress.

總體而言，觀察家們還不清楚。我們最近採訪了比爾o維迪（惠普企業技術事業部負責人，曾長期擔任微軟高管）。他們目前有三個不同的管理團隊在運營其雲技術戰略。這項信息技術業務的名稱已經被改爲Helion。它有好幾個特色，其中有不少還沒有對外公佈。因此，對於惠普來說，這還是一個在不斷改進的半成品。

Toward the end of her article almost a decade ago, Carol Loomis asked Carly Fiorina who the leading technology company of the day was. Fiorina responded that there was no one company, but in retrospect Apple exerted far more than its fair share of leadership. What would your answer be today?

在大約10年前那篇文章的結尾，卡羅爾o盧米斯問卡莉o菲奧莉娜，哪家公司當時處於領導地位。菲奧莉娜回答說，沒有這樣的公司。但現在回想起來，蘋果公司的領先優勢顯然要比她想象的大得多。你現在如何回答這個問題？

Apple today is clearly the world’s leading consumer tech company. And IBM is the leading enterprise company. But Microsoft, Oracle, and HP aren’t far behind. The HP Inc company is probably pretty close to half consumer and half enterprise. There’s still the question of how HP fits in. I think the split is to better position the enterprise side. They are vulnerable there. Their cloud strategy is unclear to people.

蘋果現在當然是全球領先的消費技術公司。IBM則是全球領先的企業技術公司。不過，微軟、甲骨文(Oracle)和惠普也並沒有被遠遠拋在後面。分拆後成立的惠普Inc公司，可能非常接近成爲一家消費技術和企業技術各佔據一半的公司。惠普如何協調如此多業務這一問題依然存在。我認爲，此次拆分是爲了更好地定位企業技術業務。他們在這方面比較脆弱。人們還看不清楚該公司的雲戰略。

Last question: How about you? What’s different today from your previous stint as an analyst?

最後一個問題：你最近怎麼樣？如今的工作跟以前的分析師工作有什麼不同？

It’s very similar to the early ’90s. We’re going through one of those disruptive periods when everything is changing. The lesson for investors is this: Get out of the incumbents and focus on the pure-plays. Going out to Silicon Valley is even more depressing than it was in the 1990s, with new players saying they are going to destroy the incumbents. It’s depressing because my clients own the companies that are under attack. But EMC and IBM—and even HP—are not going away quickly.

當下與上世紀90年代初非常類似。我們正在再次經歷一個破壞性時期，一切都在改變。投資者應該汲取的教訓是：離開正佔據主導地位的企業，專注於單一業務公司。硅谷現在的氛圍甚至比上世紀90年代更加壓抑，各路新公司都說，他們要摧毀在位者。我說那裏令人沮喪，是因爲我的客戶擁有的公司正在遭受攻擊。但EMC、IBM，甚至包括惠普，並沒有迅速地消失。