HP CEO Realizes They Need To Get Products To Market Quicker, Offers Nothing In Terms Of A Faster TouchPad Release

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HP CEO Leo Apotheker recently spoke with the Wall Street Journal and made some rather interesting comments concerning how quickly they get products to market. Or maybe more accurately, how slowly they get their products to maker. Of course, some of this may sound vaguely familiar as Apotheker was also interviewed by the BBC back in late-January and at that time he touched on the same topic.

With that, back in January he spoke of being cool. In fact he stated that he wanted HP to be as cool as Apple and wanted people to refer to things as “this is as cool as HP” rather than “as cool as Apple.” And while that may have offered a nice chuckle for some, that BBC interview also touched on the time it takes HP to get something to market from when it is announced. Lets offer a refresher to what he stated in January.

“HP will stop making announcements for stuff it doesn’t have. When HP makes announcements, it will be getting ready to ship,”

He also went on to state that the products that were set to be announced on February 9th would go on sale “a few weeks later.” Of course, as we have seen the February 9th announcement and have learned all about the TouchPad, Pre 3 and Veer we now know they will not all be for sale in a few weeks.

Needless to say, that little bit of slip up has not stopped Apotheker from talking about innovation and speed with the Wall Street Journal, simply stating;

“It’s not that we aren’t innovative; it’s that it takes too long to get to market.”

Well, what is the deal here, they obviously know they are slow to market and still the consumers are left waiting until sometime this summer to get their hands on what could be a rather nice webOS tablet, the TouchPad. But in fairness, these three items were likely well in the works before he took over as CEO. That said, lets hope he can make some positive changes in terms of speed in the future.