Welcome to the blog of HP’s Corporate AR team. While I will be the lead writer for this, other members of the Corp AR team will be throwing in their two-cents from time to time as well.

The goals of this blog are to broaden the topics we typically talk about in formal analyst briefings, give analyst-centric context to HP announcements and generally open the kimono. I know you are going to find this hard to believe, but my goal will be to avoid spin. I also know you’ll keep me honest if I don’t keep to this lofty goal.

One of the recurring themes for this blog will be tips for working with HP. Because HP is so large and so complex, many analysts get frustrated dealing with us. I hope to pull the curtain back to reveal who does what and how to more effectively deal with the various teams inside HP.

This blog will complement the existing Analyst Resource Center, which is the analyst portal on hp.com. We are in the process of refreshing the portal and, most importantly, removing the need for a login and password. Stay tuned for more details.

Finally, I want to quickly discuss the audience for this blog. While there is no formal definition for “IT industry analyst,” Corporate AR’s focus is on advisory firms (e.g., Forrester, Gartner and Ovum) and market research firms (e.g., IDC and Yankee). What about reporters? Nope, they are the concern of my media relations colleagues. What about financial analysts like those on Wall Street? Nope, my investor relations friends have the pleasure of dealing with that community. Ok, what about bloggers? Ah, that is a much more complex and interesting question. An analyst at a major firm, like Forrester’s Charlene Li, who blogs, but also publishes formal research, is still an analyst in my book. An analyst at a boutique firm or who is a single practitioner, like Creative Strategies’ Tim Bajarin, who uses a blog tool as a convenient publishing platform is an also part of Corp AR’s community. However, an individual who opines via a blog, but does not have some other aspect of being an analyst, like selling annual research subscriptions or selling market share data, are not part of Corp AR’s target audience. Today bloggers are the responsibility of media relations. This definition and split are not set in stone and our coverage will change as the market place for information and ideas evolves. Obviously, there will be non-analysts reading this blog and they are more than welcome to drop by.