HP chief hits back at Michael Dell

Dion Weisler uses keynote at Canalys to hammer home channel commitment and talk up Samsung print buy

HP Inc CEO Dion Weisler took a pot shot at Michael Dell as he opened his keynote at the Canalys Channel Forum in Barcelona this week.

Dell, who had been on stage earlier, talked about how currently around half of Dell's business was indirect, but Weisler (pictured) said: "We do all our business through the channel, not just 50 per cent."

The vendor was in a bullish mood, after being ranked number one for channel satisfaction according to a Canalys vendor benchmark survey, the results of which were released at the event. Metrics measured included ease of doing business, margin retention, usefulness of portals, technical support, account management and accreditation.

Speaking about the vendor's recent acquisition of Samsung's print business, Weisler said not only was the technology an ideal fit, but the quality of developers was a huge draw.

"Samsung attracts the best engineers from the industry - they want to work there as soon as they leave school," he said. "We think this is going to be tremendous for the partner community and we have announced 16 new products as well. We have a really disruptive technology there and we have been working with Samsung for a long time."

He also said the 3D printing space was "really exciting" and demonstrated some of the products HP has produced including 'smart' chain links, which have chips built in that allow heavy objects such as vehicles to be weighed. "The printer is even printing itself," he said.

Speaking about HP Inc since the firm split into two, he said: "For our partner community we are more focused and we are executing against our strategy and the Samsung acquisition was a great part of that. The acquisition would never have happened in the old HP as it would have been impossible to focus attention on that many things - being separated was a better answer.

"If we do all the right things, and make all the right products, understand the customer journey, then we will end up taking [market] share."

He said that with the HP X3 (three-in-one) device, the vendor was leading in category creation.

"We invented the calculator, and we need to be back in the category creation business," he said. "Technology is moving so fast that it enables the creation of new categories. We have already had the world's thinnest laptop and Sprout. You have to continually invest in these things."