New CEO lays out vision for HP

In his first major speech since taking the reins at Hewlett-Packard, CEO Léo Apotheker outlined plans this week for HP to assume a major new role in connecting businesses and consumers to services over the Internet.

HP, the world's biggest tech company, plans to create online "clouds" or data centers where developers and business clients can build and host a variety of Internet-based applications, Apotheker said.

The company as well hopes to create a huge "connected" audience by putting its own webOS operating system on 100 million new devices every year -- including PCs, tablets, smartphones and printers used by consumers and businesses -- so that users can access the same information and services no matter what device they are using.

"People want a secure, seamless experience at home and at work," Apotheker told an audience of analysts and journalists Monday, afterwards noting that people increasingly use the same innovation in both home and work environments.

The fabric of the global community

"Information innovation is the fabric of the global community," he added, in a speech that painted a broad vision for the company during leaving many operational questions unanswered.

The idea for building a huge new market around HP's webOS software is "an excellent strategy," said tech analyst Frank Gillett of Forrester Technology, even though he added that HP faces an uphill battle against Apple, Google and other rivals.

But Gillett said some aspects of HP's plan to create a new "cloud computing" platform for software applications "left us all kind of scratching our heads and looking for more detail." Apotheker said the company will use its own data centers, as then as help clients build their own platforms, to host Internet-based software and services.

As expected, Apotheker as well said HP plans to expand its portfolio of business software. However rather than compete directly with companies like SAP or Oracle in providing software that businesses use to run their manufacturing, sales or payroll operations, he indicated that HP will focus more on software to operate their computer systems and on the growing markets for information security and data analytics.

The world's most valuable raw material

"Data is the world's most valuable raw material and information is the most valuable commodity," he said, earlier unveiling a new product that businesses can use to conduct "real-time analytics" of information coming from a variety of sources.

With $126 billion in annual sales and more than 300,000 employees, HP is the world's biggest seller of PCs and a leading supplier of printers, commercial computing systems and research services.

But the Palo Alto-based company is facing new competitive challenges from other tech giants, including IBM, Oracle and Cisco Systems. It's as well confronting major shifts in its core businesses, as many of its corporate clients are moving their operations to the Internet, during consumers are replacing their home PCs with smartphones and tablets.

New line of phones

HP last month unveiled a new line of phones and tablets using the webOS software that HP acquired when it bought Palm. HP as well plans to begin installing webOS on PCs, along with Microsoft's Windows.