HP Innovation, One Pricey Giant Screen at a Time

With a tsunami roaring toward Sendai, Japan, Hewlett-Packard’s Photon Engine software directs the response at a nearby command center. Collecting data from traffic cameras, first-responder vehicles, smartphones, and satellites, the software displays information on a huge touchscreen. It lets emergency personnel have what military types call “full situational awareness,” and quickly suggest escape routes.

It’s only a simulation, one that took place recently on HP’s Cupertino (Calif.) campus. Todd Bradley nods approval. The executive vice president of printing and personal systems at the computer giant’s newly merged PC and printer business says Photon Engine is a step toward renewing the company’s “heritage of innovation” and silencing critics who say its best days have passed. Bradley and Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman say they plan to reverse the decline in research and development spending that occurred under previous CEOs. Last year, HP spent 2.6 percent of sales on R&D, down from more than 4 percent seven years ago. “We underinvested in innovation,” Whitman says.