New CEO Predicts Modest Growth for HP

The new CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co. said he expects revenue to grow 4 percent to 6 percent in its 2007 fiscal year, driven by increased sales in digital printing and data centers. In his first face-to-face meeting with Wall Street analysts since taking the CEO post, Mark Hurd said HP expects to capitalize on growth in digital and high-end printing, mobile computing and the move among corporate computer users away from mainframe computers to data centers and more distributed, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Over the past six months, Hurd has restructured H-P by laying off more than 15,000 employees and eliminating a sales group. At yesterday’s meeting, Hurd didn’t disclose any big strategic changes to H-P, such as selling a business unit. Some investors have called for a breakup of the company or a spinoff of its lucrative imaging-and-printing business as a way to unlock H-P’s value. Mr. Hurd has said there is nothing wrong with H-P’s strategy and that he simply wants the company to execute better.

–Alison Bass