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

Trendingnow

1

Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 

2

Despite a $500 million net worth, Shaq just finished his fourth degree. He warns graduates: 'Your character will take you further than your resume'

3

Meet a 21-year-old community college student who's going to China as the first American woman welder in the trades Olympics

1

Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 

2

Despite a $500 million net worth, Shaq just finished his fourth degree. He warns graduates: 'Your character will take you further than your resume'

3

Meet a 21-year-old community college student who's going to China as the first American woman welder in the trades Olympics
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

Sheryl Sandberg tells Gen Z the 10-year career plan is dead as AI wipes out entry-level jobs: ‘Don’t script your career when the future is uncertain’
Successcareer
Sheryl Sandberg tells Gen Z the 10-year career plan is dead as AI wipes out entry-level jobs: ‘Don’t script your career when the future is uncertain’
By Orianna Rosa RoyleMay 21, 2026
56 minutes ago
Microsoft lost its way in the AI race. Can Copilot get it back on course?
MagazineMicrosoft
Microsoft lost its way in the AI race. Can Copilot get it back on course?
By Jeremy KahnMay 21, 2026
56 minutes ago
Samuel Corum/Getty Images
Big TechSpaceX
Elon Musk’s proposed pay package in SpaceX’s IPO filing reveals what the company actually is: a $1 trillion monster built to colonize Mars
By Eva RoytburgMay 20, 2026
8 hours ago
elon
SuccessIPOs
SpaceX IPO targets $28.5 trillion total addressable market, mission to ‘make life multiplanetary’ and understand ‘true nature of the universe’
By Nick LichtenbergMay 20, 2026
10 hours ago
Jensen Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia
AINvidia
Nvidia tells skeptical investors that AI is ready to go mainstream
By Ian King and BloombergMay 20, 2026
10 hours ago
SpaceX finally files IPO prospectus, reveals revenue is up–but losses are too
Big TechSpaceX
SpaceX finally files IPO prospectus, reveals revenue is up–but losses are too
By Allie Garfinkle and Alexei OreskovicMay 20, 2026
11 hours ago

Most Popular

Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 
Workplace Culture
Bolt CEO says he let go of his entire HR team for creating problems that didn’t exist: ‘Those problems disappeared when I let them go’ 
By Preston ForeMay 19, 2026
1 day ago
Despite a $500 million net worth, Shaq just finished his fourth degree. He warns graduates: 'Your character will take you further than your resume'
Success
Despite a $500 million net worth, Shaq just finished his fourth degree. He warns graduates: 'Your character will take you further than your resume'
By Preston ForeMay 20, 2026
17 hours ago
Meet a 21-year-old community college student who's going to China as the first American woman welder in the trades Olympics
Future of Work
Meet a 21-year-old community college student who's going to China as the first American woman welder in the trades Olympics
By Mike Householder and The Associated PressMay 17, 2026
4 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
8 days ago
Dr. Bernice King on why companies that walked back DEI were never truly committed: 'If you retreat that quick…that reveals who you really are'
Workplace Culture
Dr. Bernice King on why companies that walked back DEI were never truly committed: 'If you retreat that quick…that reveals who you really are'
By Preston ForeMay 19, 2026
2 days ago
Current price of oil as of May 20, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of May 20, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerMay 20, 2026
18 hours 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.