Hurd was questioned by Gartner analysts David Cearley and Donna Scott. Usually, for tsuch interviews, the person being interviewed sits as well, but Hurd spent a lot of his time on his feet, drawing diagrams on the board to show how the company was developing, and poising itself for a move to vertical markets.

In his nearly five years as CEO, Hurd has put a lot of effort into reducing costs, cutting management layers, and cutting the number of applications used in the business, from 7,000, some gained through a number of acquisitions, , to 2,000. The goal now is to reduce the number of applications to 1,000.

The cuts and changes in HP's staff may have created other issues for the company, something Scott alluded at in one question about the sales effort. "We hear about fragmentation and that HP is difficult to do business with," she said, and asked what customers should expect from HP's account teams.

Hurd acknowledged that "sales, as a discipline, has not been what's been at the heart for the company," and said he agreed "to some degree" with Scott's point, but said that the company was making progress in that area. "There are a lot of things we can do to simplify the customer experience," he said.

A major goal will be creating new verticals to provide complete industry product lines, Hurd said.