Along with its third quarter 2013 results, HP this week announced that it is shuffling around its executive management.
The company’s current COO, Bill Veghte will soon be the EVP and general manager of HP’s Enterprise division. According to HP, current Enterprise head Dave Donatelli will “take on a new role focused on identifying early-stage technologies…” HP’s Marketing and Communications divisions are also being combined, and Chief Communications Officer Henry Gomez will head the new division.
HP has been seeking to reassure investors since two bombshell quarterly reports last year – one announcing an $8 billion loss related to its EDS purchase, and another announcing an $8.8 billion impairment charge over what HP claims were fraudulent accounting practices at Autonomy before its purchase. The Autonomy claims in particular have spurred lawsuits from investors and an embarrassing back-and-forth between HP and Autonomy’s former management.
HP’s third quarter 2013 financials were not nearly as dismal as last year’s, though that does not mean much. The company’s revenue was down year-over-year, $27.2 billion this past quarter versus 29.7 billion during the third quarter. The company largely matched earnings predictions, logging 1.4 billion ($0.71 per share) in earnings, which is practically incomparable to 2012’s $8.9 billion loss during the third quarter.
“I remain confident that we are making progress in our turnaround,” Meg Whitman, CEO of HP. “We are already seeing significant improvement in our operations, we are successfully rebuilding our balance sheet, our cost structure is more closely aligned with our revenue and we have reignited innovation at HP, with a focus on the customer.”