Two HP Server Execs Throw in the Towel

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The heat is on in Hewlett-Packard's Enterprise Systems Group, which is the main reason why the company did not make its numbers in the latest quarter. HP's competitors are, of course, making the rounds trying to drum up stories that suggest that the departure of Howard Elias, who was named as senior vice president of business operations and management for the newly created Enterprise Systems Group back in May, was due to HP's missed numbers.

There may be some truth to that, and then again, maybe not. HP spokesperson Tim Marklein said that Elias left the company voluntarily. He also said that Hugh Jenkins, vice president of marketing for the Intel-based server line within the Enterprise Systems Group, has also resigned from the company, and did so voluntarily.

Peter Blackmore, executive vice president in charge of Enterprise Systems Group, announced in an internal memo to the company on September 5 that Elias had resigned; Jenkins turned in his last day at HP on September 12. Both executives come from the Compaq side of the HP house, by the way. There will be much made of this in the press as well. Mark Sorenson, who used to run HP's storage unit and who was from Compaq, just jumped ship to rival EMC.

Elias joined Digital Equipment Corp. in 1994 and was in charge of the company's X86-based line of PCs, workstations, and servers. Before that, he held senior management positions at AST Research and Tandy Corp. When Compaq bought Digital, in 1998, Elias was vice president in charge of Windows NT systems. He eventually was tapped to head Compaq's storage business, soon after the Digital merger. In January 2001, he was named as senior vice president and group general manager of Compaq's Business Critical Systems unit, which comprised the OpenVMS and Tru64 AlphaServer and NonStop Himalaya server lines. After HP merged with Compaq, Elias was named as manager of the company's network storage solutions. In May, he became senior vice president of a new unit called Business Management and Operations for Enterprise Systems Group, which was essentially a means by which strategy, business planning, marketing, internal IT systems, and other governance functions for the various units within Enterprise Systems Group were brought under Elias' control. With his departure, the executives of various Enterprise Systems Group units will now assume these responsibilities and will report directly to Blackmore.

As is often the case in complex organizations with ambitious executives, the job that Elias was given may not have had enough meat to it to suit his taste. (He probably wanted the job Scott Stollard has as senior vice president of the Enterprise Storage and Servers unit inside HP, which brings all the hardware units into one organization. But that is just speculation.) Given the vagueness of the Business Management and Operations job, and the tough times HP is facing in enterprise systems, it is no surprise that Elias decided to pursue other interests. Exactly what those are, Elias is not saying.

Neither is Jenkins, a native of the United Kingdom, saying what his plans are. HP sources indicate that Jenkins is particularly interested in relocating back home to England. A replacement has not been named for Jenkins yet, but his position will be filled, said HP.

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