HP: Undervalued and Preparing for Apple Assault

This move will allow HP to design future builds with initiatives and focus not only on its existing products but more importantly how these new products will work together. One of the market advantages from which Apple benefits greatly has always been the ease of a unified system. By having now merged the two businesses, Hewlett-Packard may be able to capitalize on some market opportunities that may otherwise not have been available. The cost savings is one thing and the synergies between the divisions is another, but it's clear that the company wants better relationships and designs between its PCs and printers. But the question is -- will Wall Street buy it?

In the onset, it was a challenge to assess whether or not that the company has done a good enough job of convincing investors that a new HP is on the horizon, especially when considering the revolving door that has become the company's CEO post. The market is now taking a "wait and see" attitude toward HP and I think that's a fair approach as new CEO Meg Whitman has a tall task ahead of her in not only executing correctly, but also erasing these clouds of doubt that continue to plague the company for its past transgressions.

Its cloud initiative

Speaking of cloud, the company has what is called "Converged Infrastructure" or essentially taking everything that is in the enterprise and offering collaborating solutions in a way to meet business efficiency. It is no secret that there are a significant number of corporations today that deal with what I would consider unfavorable IT infrastructure -- where the primary drivers consist of aging hardware, legacy architecture and complicated networks. When you add the fact that there is usually a vital need to manage the volume of data traffic on the network, it then becomes a hassle. As with Cisco, Hewlett-Packard is now another company that I think is well positioned to capitalize on increased data demand.

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Not only does HP offer solutions that meet the needs of the enterprise, but it has an added mobile advantage over Cisco from having acquired Palm several years ago and currently holds mobile patents. From that standpoint, one can argue that it now has the potential to match up pretty well with Apple since Apple does not have the network infrastructure advantage that HP has. This is what the company realizes and it's something that investors must consider when appraising future value -- particularly from a stock that has been beaten up to the degree of HP. And when you add the fact that the company first introduced its converge infrastructure two years ago, the company has an added advantage with its lead.

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