HP to Drive Innovation, Scale and Growth of webOS
PALO ALTO, Calif., - Building on the successful launch of HP webOS 3.0, HP today announced it is accelerating the global expansion of webOS. To support this next phase of growth, HP has appointed Stephen DeWitt
as senior vice president and general manager of its webOS global
business unit. Jon Rubinstein, the visionary behind webOS, will assume a
product innovation role within the Personal Systems Group (PSG) at HP.
This announcement underscores HP's strategy to provide a seamless,
secure, context-aware experience across HP's product portfolio, and to
deliver innovation at unmatched scale.
"With the successful debut of our first wave of webOS-based products,
we are drawing on our deep executive bench to position the right leaders
in the right roles to accelerate the long-term growth of webOS," said
Todd Bradley, executive vice president, Personal Systems Group, and
member of the Executive Board, HP. "Stephen DeWitt has a proven
ability to build and scale organizations into global, multibillion dollar
operations, and I am confident that he will take webOS to the next level.
At the same time, we continue to leverage the core strengths of Silicon
Valley icon Jon Rubinstein to apply his considerable talents across the
PSG portfolio."
DeWitt, who has been leading the PSG Americas region at HP, will be
responsible for all aspects of the webOS business, including engineering,
research and development, sales, marketing and go-to-market support. In
his new role, DeWitt will spearhead the creation of a fully integrated,
global developer and independent software vendor program to deliver
new consumer and business applications. DeWitt's team also will create
a dedicated mobility practice with HP's partner community, with the goal
of delivering consumer and enterprise solutions globally.
DeWitt has dramatically improved PSG's profitability and share position
in the America's region since his arrival to HP in 2008. He is succeeded
by Stephen DiFranco, head of the Solutions Partners Organization for the
Americas region at HP.
"Innovation is at the core of webOS, and I look forward to working with
our talented team of engineers as we strive to develop the industry's most
compelling set of products, solutions and services in markets around the
world," said DeWitt. "As part of our investment in the future of webOS,
we are working in lock step with the developer community, our channel
partners and the start-up community to create an application ecosystem
that delivers on HP's mobile connectivity strategy."
Jon Rubinstein has been named senior vice president for Product
Innovation in the Personal Systems Group at HP. He will continue to
report to Todd Bradley in this role, helping to propel innovation across
product lines. HP will leverage Rubinstein's passion for building
exceptional consumer products and his long history of driving game
changing innovation, such as webOS.
"With the launch of webOS 3.0, our team has delivered a world-class
platform for HP to leverage going forward, and it is now time to take
things to the next level," said Rubinstein. "With webOS under Stephen
DeWitt's proven leadership, I'm looking forward to my new role and
driving further innovation for webOS and other PSG products."
About HP
HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact
on people, businesses, governments and society. The world's largest
technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing,
personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure at the
convergence of the cloud and connectivity, creating seamless, secure,
context-aware experiences for a connected world. More information
about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at www.hp.com.
