Joshi Says He Has No Plans To Leave HP

Joshi, considered by many channel executives and analysts as the leading internal candidate to succeed ousted CEO and Chairman Carly Fiorina, lost out to former NCR CEO mark Hurd, who was named Tuesday as HP president and CEO.

When asked by CRN if he intended to stay with the company, Joshi said, "I am very committed to HP. I have been here for 25 years."

Joshi's comments came after a press conference in Palo Alto in which HP chairman Patricia Dunn introduced Hurd to the media.

The week after Fiorina's ouster, Joshi delivered a rousing address to HP's business partners at the vendor's Americas Partner Conference in Las Vegas. "Today is the time to beat Dell and IBM. We don't want to wait for a new CEO. Forget it. Let's do it right now," he told HP partners at the February conference. "If we work together as an extended team, nobody can touch us."

At the partner conference, HP executives vowed to increase channel revenues by 40 percent from the current $50 billion annually up to $70 billion. The company also promised tighter rules of engagement in the SMB market similar to ones in place for the enterprise in order to avoid conflict with HP's direct sales force and foster more cooperation.

When Hurd was asked by CRN if he would endorse that channel strategy, he said, "I arrived here at 9 pm last night. I plan to do a lot of listening and lot of talking before [making any strategy decisions]."

Joshi said that he supported the HP board's selection of Hurd as the next CEO. "I think it's going to be good," he said.

Joshi said too that Hurd would have his full support going forward, including any decision to spin off the printing and PC group. "We would need to look at that and do the right thing, like Mark said."

He added that he would be more than willing to serve as Hurd's right hand man if he were asked. "I'll do whatever Mark and HP want me to do," he said.

At the press conference, attended by about 50 members of the media and broadcast to HP employees, Hurd avoided mention of Fiorina and HP's recent stormy years. "I'm not concerned with the past; only the future," he said.

But he said that if the bulk of HP's problems are internal, that should be easy to fix. "Internal problems are easy to deal with, provided the leadership does its job," he said. "We'll get those fixed in a hurry."

Craig Zarley contributed to this story.