• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

Despite having a $165 million net worth, Scarlett Johansson says work-life balance doesn’t exist—and the first step to success is admitting that

2

The Bezos family just donated $100 million to help achieve one of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s top campaign promises

3

Microsoft AI chief gives it 18 months—for all white-collar work to be automated by AI

1

Despite having a $165 million net worth, Scarlett Johansson says work-life balance doesn’t exist—and the first step to success is admitting that

2

The Bezos family just donated $100 million to help achieve one of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s top campaign promises

3

Microsoft AI chief gives it 18 months—for all white-collar work to be automated by AI
TechFortune 500

7 Questions With HP Inc.’s CEO After $1 Billion Acquisition

By
Jonathan Vanian
Jonathan Vanian
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Jonathan Vanian
Jonathan Vanian
Down Arrow Button Icon
September 12, 2016, 5:25 PM ET
Fortune Brainstorm Tech 2015
Fortune Brainstorm Tech, Aspen, CO July 15th, 2015 10:00 AM ENTERPRISE TRANSFORMATION Helena Foulkes, Executive Vice President, CVS Health and President, CVS pharmacy Dion Weisler, Executive Vice President, Printing and Personal Services, Hewlett-Packard Moderator: Pattie Sellers, Fortune Photograph by Kevin Moloney/Fortune Brainstorm TechPhotograph by Kevin Moloney — Fortune Brainstorm TECH

HP Inc. CEO Dion Weisler started Monday with a bang.

His company, a giant in personal computer and printing, said it would buy Samsung’s printer business for $1.05 billion. Weisler’s hope is that the deal would help HP (HPQ) better compete in the copy machine market and help offset declining sales of printers.

HP said Samsung’s printing business brought in $1.8 billion in sales for its fiscal 2015. This number is just a fraction of HP’s overall printing business, which brought in $21.2 billion in 2015, an 8.5% drop from 2014. Still, HP believes that the Samsung deal will help it be more competitive in a tough printer market.

In an interview with Fortune on Monday, Weisler explained his rationale for the acquisition and how he believes it will give the struggling HP Inc. the momentum it needs. Here’s an edited version of the talk with Weisler:

Fortune: What’s the big takeaway from this billion-dollar deal?

Weisler: What we’re doing is disrupting an outdated, old $55 billion copier market with superior multi-function printing, and that’s the core takeaway. We have low market share here, we’ve acquired more than 6,500 patents, 1,300 of the best engineers in Korea along with other folks around the world. Our ability now to enter into this space and disrupt it is just fantastic.

How long have you been planning this acquisition?

The genesis here is that we began this journey with Samsung when we declared back at our security analyst meeting [last September] that we would become serious about getting into the A3 copier space [A3 generally refers to a paper size of 11″ x 17″] . So we looked at the entire market to find technology that could disrupt traditional copiers. We started working with Samsung and the more we got into it, the more we understood the value of the their disruptive technology, and the sheer number of highly relevant patents that they’ve created in a very short period of time.

When I think of other disruptive technology, I can’t help but think of 3D printing. Should we be expecting more HP acquisitions in the 3D printing space?

Well, 3D printing is, of course, an entirely new category [HP showed off its new 3D printers earlier this summer]. We are incredibly excited by our multi-jet fusion technology—we think it’s game changing. It’s a real stand out for plastics, short-run production, and frankly in the future when the cost of materials comes down, for long-run production as well as traditional prototyping. We have other materials in the wheelhouse and we see a road to [3D printing] ceramics in parts.

Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.

The acquisitions we make will always be on a returns-based framework for our shareholders, and we won’t buy companies for share-sake—we will buy technologies.

Are there certain technologies that you feel will augment your current 3D-printing technology?

We look at all sorts of technologies all the time. We did a very small acquisition about six weeks ago for 3D-printing scanning software and hardware from David [Germany-based scanning software company David Vision Systems]. We constantly scout Silicon Valley and we constantly scout Israel with more than 5,000 startups in the country.

Tell me how pulling off a deal of this size was easier since HP split from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) in November. HPE appears to be selling off parts of its business while HP just made a big acquisition.

I’m not going to comment on Hewlett Packard Enterprise. We separated from each other in order to propel the companies forward, and I think the separation has enabled us to run at a much faster pace, to innovate faster, to change our channel [reseller] programs, and to make these kinds of acquisitions.

When we wake up everyday, all we think about is printing and personal systems. We can reinvest back in this business. In the past, we were all competing for those very precious investment dollars.

How do you plan to blend together the two different company cultures of HP Inc. and Samsung?

Of course we are a global company today. We have representation in Korea as we do in almost every other country on the globe. We don’t discount the need for cultural integration.

Personally, I’ve worked in Asia for more than ten years, and I have managed Korea for more than ten years. I have a very good understanding of the culture there. What’s amazing to me are the similarities between Samsung and HP— they are both very engineering-rich organizations. Culturally there’s a common thread between the DNA of HP and the DNA of Samsung. There will be work to do with cultural integration. It is something I will personally take control of.

For more about HP, watch:

Will you bring Samsung engineers to your research arm, HP Labs?

Absolutely. I’ve done this in other companies in the past.

One of the key things you do is bring top talent from Korea into top sites around the world—into HP labs or into the business units—wherever they’ve got people. And then you take people from our current sites and you put them into Korea. You really select top talent, and then the teams start to learn each other’s vernacular and start integrating. And then you send them back and you bring a new set of folks in, and this is how you bridge the seams between the different cultures.

About the Author
By Jonathan Vanian
LinkedIn iconTwitter icon

Jonathan Vanian is a former Fortune reporter. He covered business technology, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, data privacy, and other topics.

See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Tech

SpaceX heads into a record-shattering IPO with the ‘deepest moat that exists today’ as investors vow to ‘never bet against Elon’
InnovationIPOs
SpaceX heads into a record-shattering IPO with the ‘deepest moat that exists today’ as investors vow to ‘never bet against Elon’
By Jason MaMay 16, 2026
2 hours ago
tarot
AICulture
We talked to 12 tarot card readers who are using AI. They split in 2 camps, with big implications for the technology
By Ziv Epstein, Farnaz Jahanbakhsh, Vana Goblot and The ConversationMay 16, 2026
4 hours ago
liberman
Commentarystart-ups
We watched social media concentrate. The same thing is happening in AI, only at a deeper layer
By David Liberman and Daniil LibermanMay 16, 2026
5 hours ago
mustafa suleyman
AIMicrosoft
Microsoft AI chief gives it 18 months—for all white-collar work to be automated by AI
By Jake AngeloMay 16, 2026
6 hours ago
olivier
CommentaryAnthropic
I’ve been studying Big Tech for a long time. What just happened with Anthropic and the Pentagon terrifies me
By Olivier SylvainMay 16, 2026
7 hours ago
bhaskar
Economydisruption
The prophet of the ‘Wired Belt’ says capitalism is finally eating itself
By Bhaskar ChakravortiMay 16, 2026
8 hours ago

Most Popular

Despite having a $165 million net worth, Scarlett Johansson says work-life balance doesn’t exist—and the first step to success is admitting that
Success
Despite having a $165 million net worth, Scarlett Johansson says work-life balance doesn’t exist—and the first step to success is admitting that
By Preston ForeMay 13, 2026
3 days ago
The Bezos family just donated $100 million to help achieve one of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s top campaign promises
Politics
The Bezos family just donated $100 million to help achieve one of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s top campaign promises
By Jake AngeloMay 12, 2026
4 days ago
Microsoft AI chief gives it 18 months—for all white-collar work to be automated by AI
AI
Microsoft AI chief gives it 18 months—for all white-collar work to be automated by AI
By Jake AngeloMay 16, 2026
6 hours ago
Current price of oil as of May 15, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of May 15, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerMay 15, 2026
1 day ago
Meet the 20-year-old CEO who launched a company in high school to solve Gen Z's entry-level job crisis
Future of Work
Meet the 20-year-old CEO who launched a company in high school to solve Gen Z's entry-level job crisis
By Jake AngeloMay 16, 2026
10 hours ago
Debbie Gibson, Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath want you to adopt a beagle rescued from an experimental lab in Wisconsin
North America
Debbie Gibson, Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath want you to adopt a beagle rescued from an experimental lab in Wisconsin
By Scott Bauer and The Associated PressMay 13, 2026
3 days ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.