HP's Printing and Personal Systems organization is currently worth $57 billion and includes a number of HP businesses, such as its computers, mobile devices and printers. The organization has reached the size to separate from Hewlett-Packard Enterprise later this year, with Dion Weisler set to step up as CEO of the new company.
Dion Weisler himself has had a long history in tech – having worked for the likes of Acer and Lenovo in a number of different countries – which has helped shape his interesting vision for the future of HP. He discussed this future in a recent interview with Forbes.
One of HP's biggest areas of growth is in printing, where the company is already a major player. This isn't just personal printing, however — Weisler talked about printing on a larger scale.
"Almost 90 percent of billboards around the planet are printed on very large print presses, many of them using HP printers," Weisler said in the interview. "When you buy a book from Amazon today, they don't have that sitting in stock. They print you one individual copy on a large print press that's powered by HP technology."
Traditional printing isn't the only thing that the company is looking to expand into. 3D printing is another area of improvement for the company — starting in the commercial space and eventually moving up into consumer markets.
"In our view, the greatest amount of value actually starts in the commercial marketplace. Ultimately as these technologies mature, it will make its way into the consumer realm, as well. Some have another strategy to grow from consumer up," continued Weisler. "I think the reason it has not taken off either in consumer or commercial, is as an industry we have not solved the problem of speed, quality, and cost."
On the consumer end, Weisler talked about the rise of immersive computing — something that the company is exploring with Sprout, which is able to take 3D scans of objects. Weisler described this as a way to bring physical objects into the digital world, a concept that is becoming more important in our increasingly digital lives.
HP also has a vision for the next big markets in the world, with Weisler saying that "the next three billion eyeballs will not come from mature markets." Weisler went on to talk about the fact that HP is expanding to develop products in China for the Chinese market and that it is also expanding into the Indian market.
It will certainly be interesting to see the role that HP plays in the future of computing, especially when it comes to printing and 3D technology development.
