HP's Personal Systems President Alex Cho Talks CES 2021 - Six Five Insiders

I'm doing great. I had a couple of weeks where the company slowed down for the holidays.

Sure, I'd love to talk about what I do. Thank you. You know, the way I think about it is I am responsible for helping to design solutions that help people stay productive and keep learning and be secure and be cared for. I mean, especially during this time, I'd say that the opportunity for us from what we call personal systems spans PC devices, yes, but the rich ecosystem of peripherals and displays and services, all of that that we innovate around in order to help people.

Well, you're right, first is it's all different, and different doesn't necessarily mean bad, but it is different. In fact, what we're finding is there's a lot of things that you can do uniquely in virtual that you actually couldn't do physically. So it's all of that combined. For us, if anything, think about the space that we're in, we're in computing, and last year when we started to say the PC is essential, it's a fundamental need people have, but it's also the way by which these things like events are happening, it's the way by which people are learning and staying educated and going to school. So for me, what this all means is yes, it's different, there are things that we have to learn, but it's opening up new ways. As an example, you can get a lot more content, you can cover a lot more territory. I'm talking to more customers and partners than I ever did. Interesting, it's so much more efficient. So the ability to get a lot of content and exposure and conversations and to cover that territory efficiently, wow.

So let me just build on this topic around the PC being essential. I mean, you heard that a lot from us last year, and we realized wow, this category that we're in is not only useful but it's essential for all the areas that we've talked about, for work, for learning, for healthcare. And as we entered into 2021, we realized the PC is certainly important, but what we need to focus on are the people, because it's people who are essential. You know, our biggest learning is yes, PCs are essential because people are essential, and it's so important to enable them. So for us, heading into 2021, we've spent a lot more time understanding the set of challenges. Guess what, we're also paying attention to the IT manager of today, different set of challenges and needs than the IT manager of pre-COVID. What do they need? And then as well, all of these creatives, especially youth, and their desire to want to express themselves. So we're really focusing on the people behind where all this innovation needs to serve. And maybe the second thing is it's all about experiences. You know, it's funny, I was thinking about CES, maybe we should rebrand it the Consumer Experience Show, because it's a great indication of what we think is more important than just a product, and that's the experience we're creating.

Sure. So just to add to your earlier statement, what is very interesting, I'm finding it true, is that digital is far more important. I mean, everyone knows that, but in this environment we're recognizing that digital is more important and physical is also so precious as well. So the innovation opportunities lie when you think about the announcements or when we talk about announcements that we're doing at CES. It is around looking and studying the needs of these personas that I mentioned, whether you're a hybrid worker, or you're an SMB, or you're an IT manager, or you are a youth who wants to create. In fact, everyone wants to create. We talk about the use cases: creating, consuming, collaborating. Those are the three C's of last year, and we said hey, we're seeing in our telemetry people are doing more creating, consuming, collaborating. That was pre-COVID. COVID happens, reading goes through the roof, consuming content whether it's video.

Sure. So one of the key design theaters that's important for most people is the home, whether it's for work or for learning, etc. So we took our cues from studying how people are working in their home, and there's several insights that we're finding. Number one is they're not just in one place. They are announcing our flagship 800 series notebook and delivering that in a new light form factor that breaks all of the records that we've had and is really out there around lightweight so that you can move around and use and be productive while you do so. Second thing that we're announcing is...

Yeah, look at the far right, the 840 EliteBook. Arrow far right. Yeah, there you go, I see your little pointer there. That's the world's lightest 14-inch mainstream notebook. It is enabled with a lot of intelligence, AI that we've built into the device based on how you work. What do you care about? You care a lot more about instant on, and so we've enabled this to enable faster on/off because you're quickly transitioning from room to room, opening it up, closing it down, etc., which is very important. The other thing that continues to be important is recognizing you're in a place where there's other sounds around you, so AI-based noise reductions so ambient sounds are excluded and people can focus on your voice when you're talking. Again, just looking at how people are working and how they are doing that throughout the day. The security needs are only being magnified, and so the best of our security suite is incorporated in this, and we take it even further. We make sure that if you by chance misplace the device, it's findable through a unique integration that we have with Tile so that you can find the device. So we're really looking at the life cycle of how a worker works in today's environment, and you see that manifested in our mainstream product which is our 840 EliteBook.

Yeah, happy to. And then you move over to the left there, there you go. Yeah, and what are they doing? I mean, that is a pull-forward device. We introduced it first in our consumer product, and now we're introducing it in our commercial form factor, or in our commercial line. It's the Elite Folio. It has multiple modes that recognizes that you compute in many different ways. Yes, it has a keyboard mode for the productivity of having a keyboard that you can have also while you're on your lap. Secondly, it goes very quickly into tablet mode because often you are jotting things down, and we have a garage pen that automatically when you take it out will trigger your whiteboard. Because what is SMB doing a lot? They are consuming content on how you do this and how you do that, so maximizing for video consumption that's happening. And all of this is done while recognizing that this device needs to fit into a broader ecosystem of experiences, meaning what you do with your phone, so enabling you to move pictures and files from your phone quickly onto the device. So we've really looked at again the day in the life of an SMB, particularly during this time, the diversity of needs, and making sure it's not that the SMB needs to adapt to their device, this device adapts to what the SMB is doing.

Correct, correct. In fact, we have two iterations of it that we're announcing at CES. First is to make really the beloved Dragonfly, you're right, and bringing it to even more modern capability and enabling with 5G in what we're doing with the latest Dragonfly. And in addition, what we're doing is we're introducing the Dragonfly Max. Of course, we are, people are spending all their time collaborating, they're in Teams calls, Zoom calls, and so this device is the ultimate collaboration device. We not only added features that help in collaboration, we designed for collaboration. You know, that's a very different effort. So we put the same chassis that was breaking all the records around productivity and thinness, but also a great keyboard which is still very important. And then what did we do? We improved what I've been calling the eyes, ears, and the mouth of the product, because that's how you connect. So what do I mean? First, we improved the webcam. And so I've actually realized that all of the webcams we used to put before, they were just primarily around keeping them small and thin and light, they weren't optimized for assuming you're looking at people all day long and you want to show up well. So that's first thing. The second thing that we did is recognize not only do you want to be seen well, but you want to be heard well, and so we've increased the clarity of the mic performance by adding in more mics, also ensuring there's AI-enabled noise reduction so you hear what you want to hear and you get people to pay attention to what you want them to hear and not what you don't want to hear. Another key part, the other thing is, guess what, if you're on conference calls all day, you're staring at a screen all day too, and the wear on your eyes while you're on video conferencing, that all in case we kept all the security elements including that we've built into the device, and we've introduced even a new color. So I know everyone loved Dragonfly Blue, but as well we've made it available now in Sparkling Black because of all the demands for having some more diversity of that. So we've done a lot with this product, I'm personally very excited about it. And by the way, we're also announcing with it the recognition that not only people are conferencing in areas where they can be heard, etc., and they're okay with other people hearing, but we're also announcing with it innovation to that.

Yeah, again, I want to anchor it on what we are paying attention to, is what people are doing. And they are collaborating, and we say collaborating, but if I say on Microsoft Teams, Zoom, people immediately understand, and they're doing that all day long. And in that use case, as we have spent a lot of time now studying what our pain points and what our opportunities are, we did some work on designing earbuds that met the needs of what our customers are really looking for. So what are they looking for? Seems very basic, but related to computing. First, they need to pair easily. They need to pair easily on your device, and also device means your PC, your Windows PC, but they also want to use the earbuds not only for their PC but might be for their iOS device or their Android device. And I think others in the phone space have done a nice job setting the precedent for people learning that pairing should be quick and easy and straightforward. That's number one. Second thing is we've really focused on the ability to hear and tune for conversation. Now, a lot of tuning is done for music, which is important, and so we've made sure that we keep all the learnings around making music vibrant, but as well we really focused on being able to hear speech. What are we doing? I'm not singing to you, you don't want me to sing to you, I am talking to you, and we're talking to many different types of people with different voices. And so what we've built into this is very advanced technology, in fact it's the same technology that we use in our Poly headsets, which is the gold standard for your ability to hear speech, and we think that's very important because we don't want people to be distanced and also miss what was said, whether it was subtle or out loud. And so that's a very important part of what we're trying to build into this. And then maybe finally I would just say, it's really important that this is a device that lasts throughout the day. It also has great noise reduction, noise cancellation, which is still something that's very important, and again fits into what people are doing, whether they are doing it for work, yes, also for personal relaxation and entertainment, and customizing it to each person. By the way, turns out that people don't all hear the same way. So we've built in a hearing test so that the earbuds can adapt to your hearing. It's not people adapting to the technology, it's technology adapting to them. I could not be more excited about that direction, and that's an ambition beyond CES 2021. We're going to keep doing this because we're very excited about it and we're passionate about the opportunity.

First is, I won't be one who gives you a timeline. There's a lot of discussion on timeline. What I will say is I'm a firm believer, based on a lot of discussions, again we can do more now within this technology, that there will be a time when we are not restricted as much as we are now from traveling. But that does not mean that we will not take advantage of technology and all the innovations that we're doing now so that you don't have to travel. And I think that's a very important part in recognizing what the new normal is. Again, in my mind, in the future it will be a hybrid workplace. You won't be traveling as much for a one-hour meeting because you could do it digitally, but by the way, you could still travel, and you don't necessarily have everyone needing to go there because some people can dial in, and you won't feel left out if you're the one person who wasn't dialed in or there in person because we have technology that is very inclusive. You know, our ambition is that distance shouldn't be a barrier. Today obviously it is in many different ways, but we think that we can reduce the tax on distance by all this technology. I think people will be traveling more because they can, but they're going to choose to not all the time. In fact, if you want a breather, you're going to be scheduling a lot of virtual calls so that you can connect. The other thing that I think is a captain is the ability to tap into the resources of people out there who may not have been formally available but now can be available to teach, mentor, instruct, share. And we're creating the backbone by which all of this knowledge and sharing and wisdom and experience can be tapped into. That's not going to slow down. This is not cyclical. To use our language, the opportunity here around enabling hybrid remote productivity and learning and contribution, that is a great secular trend that we could not be more excited about.