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In 2005, when Carol Loomis wrote one of her signature, exhaustive articles for Fortune, this one about Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina’s troubled acquisition of Compaq, she quoted a Wall Street analyst who predicted that HP HP -5.89% would one day be split up.
2005年，卡罗尔·卢米斯为《财富》杂志(Fortune)撰写了一篇惠普公司(HP)首席执行官卡莉o菲奥莉娜收购康柏公司(Compaq)的计划陷于困境的详尽报道。在这篇堪称其代表作的文章中，她援引了一位华尔街分析师的预测：惠普终有一日会被拆分。
That analyst, Steven Milunovich, left the research business for a time. But he’s back at it again, now working at UBS, where he covers enterprise technology companies—that is, companies that sell technology to other companies as opposed to consumers. Milunovich is still paying careful attention to HP, which announced last week that it is splitting its consumer PC and printer businesses (to be called HP Inc) from its enterprise hardware and software lines (to be known as Hewlett-Packard Enterprise).
这位名叫史蒂芬o米卢诺维奇的分析师一度离开研究领域。但他如今又回来了。目前，米卢诺维奇供职于瑞银集团(UBS)，负责追踪企业级科技公司，也就是那些将技术卖给其他公司，而不是消费者的公司。他仍然密切注意惠普的动向。该公司上周宣布了一项分拆计划：惠普将一分为二，一个是专注从事消费PC和打印机业务的惠普公司(HP Inc)，另一个是从事企业级硬件和软件业务的惠普企业公司(Hewlett-Packard Enterprise)。
Reaction to the spin-off, beyond general praise for spin-offs, has been tepid. Writing in The New York Times over the weekend, James Stewart walks through HP’s generally weak prospects on both sides of its house. In his weekly “Monday Note,” Jean-Louis Gassée provides outstanding historical commentary on HP’s culture, calling the company today a “tired conglomeration.”
企业分拆通常能够赢得一片喝彩声，但这一次，各方的反映一直不温不火。詹姆斯o斯图尔特上周末发表于《纽约时报》(The New York Times)的文章，总体上看淡这两家公司的发展前景。在每周更新一次的博客《周一观察》(Monday Note)中，让-路易斯o盖瑟从历史的角度，对惠普的文化进行了一番精彩评论，声称这家公司如今是一个“疲惫的混合体”
As for Milunovich, he finds some reasons for guarded optimism about HP. I reached him at his desk in New York last week. Below is an edited version of our conversation.
米卢诺维奇则发现了一些让他对惠普保持谨慎乐观的原因。上周，我来到他的纽约办公室。以下是经过编辑的对话内容：
I wrote in an essay on the day the split was announced that HP didn’t much matter anymore, at least not the way it used to. Do you agree?
我在拆分宣布的当天写了一篇文章，说惠普不再是一家举足轻重的公司，至少没有过去那般重要。你同意吗？
HP’s obviously lost a lot of luster. It’s not the company it once was. But it is one of the largest consumer computing companies. Clearly Apple AAPL -0.91% has surpassed it. But HP is very close to being the number-one PC company globally. They are the premier printing company. Where they have faded is on the enterprise side, and the innovation halo they once had is long gone. But I wouldn’t say it doesn’t matter. I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration.
惠普的招牌显然有点褪色。它已经不是过去那个惠普了。但惠普仍然是世界上最大的消费计算公司之一。当然目前苹果(Apple)已经超越它了。不过，惠普距离全球头号PC厂商的位置非常接近。它依然是一家卓越的打印机公司。尽管它在企业级市场名声渐暗，曾经拥有的创新光环早已逝去。但我不会说，惠普现在无足轻重。我认为，这种看法有点夸张了。
Talk about your 2005 prediction.
说说你2005年的预测。
I apparently predicted that printers would be peeled off from PCs. I’ve always been a big believer in focus. It’s the most powerful factor in business. In the case of HP we always felt it was difficult being the premier consumer and enterprise company. Microsoft MSFT -0.86% clearly has had similar issues. In HP’s case there’s no silver bullet. No one unit is being held back. But it doesn’t encourage focus. I would argue that they should have done this years ago.
我当时预测说，打印机业务将从PC业务中剥离。我一直非常信奉“聚焦”(focus)。它是影响企业发展的最强大的因素。我们总是觉得，惠普要想同时成为一流的消费技术和企业技术公司，的确很有难度。微软(Microsoft)显然也有过类似的问题。就惠普的情况而言，没有一劳永逸的高招。该公司目前还没有收缩任何一个部门。但这不利于激励“聚焦”。我认为他们早在几年前就该做这件事了。
As you note, HP isn’t separating printers and PCs, meaning the Compaq acquisition is remaining somewhat intact.
正如你所说，惠普并没有把打印机和PC业务分离开来，这意味着早年收购的康柏资产基本上原封未动。
I’d argue that the Compaq acquisition wasn’t so bad. If you were going to try to be a major computer company, the Compaq deal made some sense. It’s not unlike the rumored EMC EMC -1.57% and HP combination currently [rumored], which could make some sense. Back then HP was weak in x86 systems [a type of computing based on Intel processors] and storage. Compaq gave them both. Clearly they would not be in the market position they are in today if they hadn’t done that acquisition.
我认为，对康柏的收购并没有那么糟糕。如果你试图成为一家大型电脑公司，收购康柏顺理成章。这跟目前传说中的EMC和惠普合并一案并没有什么区别，都是讲得通的。当时，惠普在x86系统（一种基于英特尔处理器的计算程序）和存储器方面的技术比较薄弱。康柏给了他们这两项技术。显然，要是当初没有收购康柏，惠普就不可能拥有如今的市场地位。
What is your assessment of HP’s management?
你对惠普的管理层有何评价？
They’ve lost so much talent over the years. I don’t think it can ever be what it once was. But I do believe CEO Meg Whitman has made improvements. We did a conference call recently with Mohamad Ali, HP’s chief strategist. Meg has brought to HP this “Playing to Win” approach, which Procter & Gamble PG -1.56% uses. She learned it there because [P&G CEO] A.G. Lafley used it in the 2000s. They have this strategic framework. I had never heard boo about this. It’s nine to 12 months old. I heard she had an offsite with the top 100 or so managers at HP. And she said, “I want you all to read this book. I’m going to test you on it.” The flight attendants noticed. They wanted to know why everybody on this flight to Las Vegas was reading the same book. It gives you a sense of the discipline there.
这些年来，他们失去了很多人才。我认为，惠普的管理已经无法企及昔日的水平。但我的确相信，CEO梅格o惠特曼已经做了一些改进。最近，我们跟惠普首席战略官穆罕默德o阿里进行了一场电话会议。梅格给惠普引入了宝洁公司(Procter & Gamble)率先使用的“为胜利而战”(Playing to Win)战略。她是在那里学到的，因为宝洁CEO雷富礼曾经在2000年代使用过这种方式。他们拥有这样的战略框架。我还没有听说过有人对这种理念不屑一顾。它已经被应用了大约9到12个月。我听说，她和惠普的约100名高层在异地开了一个会。她说，“我希望大家都来阅读这本书。我会考考你们对它的理解程度。”飞机上的空姐注意到了。她们想知道在这趟飞往拉斯维加斯的航班上，为什么每位乘客都在阅读同一本书。由此可见，惠普管理层还是很有纪律意识的。
HP has been talking a lot about the cloud lately, but I don’t have a sense of how its cloud computing strategy is different from the competition, several of whom have been at it longer than HP.
惠普最近一直在谈论云计算，但我并没有感觉到它的云计算战略跟竞争对手有什么不同之处，不少竞争对手进入这一领域的时间都要比惠普更长一些。
In general, observers are unclear. We talked recently to Bill Veghte [the head of HP’s enterprise group and a longtime Microsoft executive]. They’ve had three different management teams running their cloud strategy. The IT has been rebranded as Helion. It has several features, many of which aren’t available yet. So, for HP, that is a work in progress.
总体而言，观察家们还不清楚。我们最近采访了比尔o维迪（惠普企业技术事业部负责人，曾长期担任微软高管）。他们目前有三个不同的管理团队在运营其云技术战略。这项信息技术业务的名称已经被改为Helion。它有好几个特色，其中有不少还没有对外公布。因此，对于惠普来说，这还是一个在不断改进的半成品。
Toward the end of her article almost a decade ago, Carol Loomis asked Carly Fiorina who the leading technology company of the day was. Fiorina responded that there was no one company, but in retrospect Apple exerted far more than its fair share of leadership. What would your answer be today?
在大约10年前那篇文章的结尾，卡罗尔o卢米斯问卡莉o菲奥莉娜，哪家公司当时处于领导地位。菲奥莉娜回答说，没有这样的公司。但现在回想起来，苹果公司的领先优势显然要比她想象的大得多。你现在如何回答这个问题？
Apple today is clearly the world’s leading consumer tech company. And IBM is the leading enterprise company. But Microsoft, Oracle, and HP aren’t far behind. The HP Inc company is probably pretty close to half consumer and half enterprise. There’s still the question of how HP fits in. I think the split is to better position the enterprise side. They are vulnerable there. Their cloud strategy is unclear to people.
苹果现在当然是全球领先的消费技术公司。IBM则是全球领先的企业技术公司。不过，微软、甲骨文(Oracle)和惠普也并没有被远远抛在后面。分拆后成立的惠普Inc公司，可能非常接近成为一家消费技术和企业技术各占据一半的公司。惠普如何协调如此多业务这一问题依然存在。我认为，此次拆分是为了更好地定位企业技术业务。他们在这方面比较脆弱。人们还看不清楚该公司的云战略。
Last question: How about you? What’s different today from your previous stint as an analyst?
最后一个问题：你最近怎么样？如今的工作跟以前的分析师工作有什么不同？
It’s very similar to the early ’90s. We’re going through one of those disruptive periods when everything is changing. The lesson for investors is this: Get out of the incumbents and focus on the pure-plays. Going out to Silicon Valley is even more depressing than it was in the 1990s, with new players saying they are going to destroy the incumbents. It’s depressing because my clients own the companies that are under attack. But EMC and IBM—and even HP—are not going away quickly.
当下与上世纪90年代初非常类似。我们正在再次经历一个破坏性时期，一切都在改变。投资者应该汲取的教训是：离开正占据主导地位的企业，专注于单一业务公司。硅谷现在的氛围甚至比上世纪90年代更加压抑，各路新公司都说，他们要摧毁在位者。我说那里令人沮丧，是因为我的客户拥有的公司正在遭受攻击。但EMC、IBM，甚至包括惠普，并没有迅速地消失。
