HP's CEO Leo Apotheker unveiled his strategy plan for the company, including an expansion in cloud services and building the webOS system into more devices. The plan will see HP developing a full cloud offering, from infrastructure to platform services, to help customers transition to (hybrid) cloud services. This also includes setting up a "cloud marketplace" with a consumer app store and an enterprise application and services catalog. The platform will support multiple languages and be open to third parties, and HP will vet applications for security and interoperability. The HP cloud will configure and send the appropriate services to the device, and connected devices will intuitively access services the customer needs. On the hardware front, HP plans to build its webOS acquired from Palm into more devices, such as PCs and printers. HP said it could deliver 100 million webOS-enabled devices a year into the marketplace, and will use that scale to build a developer community for the OS. HP is also focusing on the "big data" market, helped by its recent acquisition of analytics firm Vertica Systems. The company showed a new appliance, based on its hardware and Vertica software, which should launch after the acquisition closes in fiscal Q2. Further expansion of HP's software offering will continue with the "build, buy and partner approach", the company said. HP also unveiled plans to increase dividends. This includes a 50 percent increase in the quarterly dividend to USD 0.12 per share, and plans for double-digit increases in annual dividends.
