THE first thing you need to know about Phil McKinney, vice-president and chief technology officer (CTO) of Hewlett-Packard's US$30 billion Personal Systems Group (PSG), is that he's having the time of his life. Heck, he gave up a very comfortable retirement to join the computer giant.
It begs the question which BizIT promptly put to the genial HP exec and self-confessed geek in an interview here last week. Okay, it begs two questions: Who ever retires at 40?; and, when in his own words, 'I had a choice, I could do anything in the world I wanted to do', why choose HP?
A clue to the latter question: Mr McKinney was in town last week for the HP Mobility Event, which featured new products and also prototypes illustrating HP's vision of the future of mobility.
But let the man tell it like it is. Retirement, he notes, gave him an opportunity to reevaluate his situation. 'I never thought I would permanently retire, although I had the option of doing that.'
Indeed. Recruited by Alex Mandel, the former president of AT&T, he became founding CIO of global fixed-wireless services provider Teligent. 'We took that company public, took it to (US$)3 billion. I did quite well, and took the option to take some time off.'
During the two-year hiatus, he did 'a little bit of angel investing' and was 'on a bunch of boards of directors'. Then HP came along, and within this behemoth the techie-turned-businessman saw the opportunity for entrepreneurship.
'The biggest thrill for any technologist is to translate ideas into products. That's what (I was doing) with entrepreneurs, helping them start and grow their businesses. With the skill and the leverage of HP I saw a real opportunity to come in and take a company that has a long history of success in innovation and technology, and help drive the translation of that into real products.'
He hasn't been disappointed, he says. He recalls an incident early in his role as CTO: '(PSG executive vice-president) Todd Bradley and I were getting ready to fly from (San Jose to San Diego) to do evaluation on a company's technology, and we had made arrangements to bring two others to be part of the evaluation. Waiting for the plane to take off, I introduce myself, and I ask them, 'What is it you're working on that really has you excited?' So this engineering person, Tom, his eyes light up and he goes, 'You really want to hear?', and I go 'Yeah!'.
'So he tells me about this motherboard design that he's come up with, whose performance is just unbelievable. And he's basically been, quote, 'borrowing' parts out of the supply cabinet, a kind of under the desk secret project. He's describing this to me and I'm saying, 'The only thing we could use this for is gaming', and he lights up, he goes, 'Exactly!'.
'So we get up on the plane, and (I tell) Todd Bradley, 'You've got to hear about this'. And by the time we landed in San Diego Todd gave us a million dollars and 15 headcount, on the spot, to go build the prototype.'
The story doesn't end there. Convinced now of the potential of this genre, HP went on to acquire Calgary-based Voodoo PC, considered the Lexus of gaming PCs. Mr McKinney is general manager of the newly-formed gaming business unit and sees this unit as a big earner going forward.
And this isn't an isolated example. 'This has just been repeated, over and over again,' he says.
The vehicle for turning ideas into real products is the Innovation Program Office (IPO), another brainchild of Mr McKinney. 'You know, I got stopped by one of the kitchen staff in the HP cafeteria in Cupertino, who had an idea for a keyboard for children,' he says delightedly.
'So the idea is now, with the IPO, HP employees have a clear way to get their ideas funded, or at least get their ideas heard. And if someone brings us an idea, and they're passionate about it, I'll pick them up and move them right into IPO. If they're really passionate, we give them the means.'
He credits his boss Todd Bradley for enabling the entrepreneurial spirit within HP's Personal Systems Group. 'PSG is a US$30 billion division, and you think, US$30 billion, how do you move fast? Well, With Todd Bradley as exec VP, you move quick. We act on the speed of decision making as if we were a much much smaller company.'
There are around 22 projects inside of the IPO, with a quarter of these coming from outside HP. 'We'll have our first IPO product launched worldwide later this year, and we're on track to be delivering two each calendar year going forward,' Mr McKinney says.
And that first product is. . . ? He laughs heartily. 'Nice try, but you'll just have to stay tuned.'
