HP Software Chief Veghte Adds Chief Strategy Officer Role

Hewlett-Packard on Tuesday appointed Bill Veghte, the ex-Microsoft executive who joined the company in May 2010, to the role of chief strategy officer.

Veghte is keeping his current role as executive vice president of software at HP. As chief strategy officer, he'll be responsible for leading HP's cloud computing strategy and its ongoing efforts to distribute WebOS software under an open-source license.

Another one of Veghte's near term objectives will be overseeing the integration of Autonomy, which HP acquired last year in a bold yet controversial $10.2 billion deal aimed at raising the company's profile in the fast growing market for information management software.

Veghte grew HP's software business by 18 percent in fiscal 2011, according to HP. While CEO Meg Whitman has said it's unlikely that HP will make any big acquisitions this year, she has held out the possibility of smaller deals to fill out HP's software portfolio.

In a major executive reshuffle last June, Veghte -- along with ESSN chief Dave Donatelli and Jan Zadak, executive vice president of global sales -- began reporting directly to then-CEO Leo Apotheker.

At Microsoft, Veghte played a key role in the launch of Windows 7, but his role became unclear in July 2009 when the company promoted Steven Sinofsky to president of the Windows Division.

Veghte joined Microsoft in 1990 and also help build Microsoft Office from a disparate collection of desktop applications into a pillar of the software giant's business. He was also previously involved in the development of Windows 98 and the development and marketing of Windows Server.