He claimed that HP could achieve the scale of shipping 100 million webOS-equipped devices a year which, in his view, would make that an enormously attractive development platform for apps providers.

Will all of this or any of this require leadership changes within HP, as has been rumored? Apotheker declined to answer that question, saying the day was about "strategy," not tactics.

At the end, Apotheker's long-awaited coming out-party was long on vision and short on milestones on a roadmap that by itself doesn't go very far in differentiating HP in a very competitive market.

Now it's up to the former leader to exercise HP's vaunted operational excellence to deliver something all the other players focused on cloud, connectivity and the consumerization of IT aren't already talking about or providing.

(Note to readers: I'll be interviewing Leo Apotheker on Tuesday and we'll provide a full transcript of that and a summary shortly after the discussion wraps up. --JG)