Hewlett-Packard Co’s Unix server business grew 5% and orders actually declined in its fourth quarter, according to Merrill Lynch & Co. Comparison with the year-ago period when HP’s V-Class server was introduced make a year-over-year comparison particularly difficult, it told the brokerage. It also blamed inventory reductions and customer anticipation of new PA-8500 servers due in its second fiscal quarter. PC unit ships rose about 25% but revenue increased just 8% and delivery of high-end NT servers was constrained by a shortage of Intel Xeon chips, the company said. The low-end of the market kept the overall numbers up resulting in an overall PC server unit growth of 40%. Laser printer revenue increased 8%; orders were up over 20%. So where does HP go from here to get back to the 15% or better revenue growth Wall Street will want to see if HP is to regain favored trading status once more? With the US and European markets not yet out of trouble, competition growing, HP is now a $47bn giant with no revolutionary products in the pipeline, and the job will be difficult, but not impossible, the brokerage believes. It thinks CEO Lew Platt could call in Ann Livermore as his number one to help look at divesting non-core businesses and get its internet and information appliance strategy going where currently it has little mindshare.
