PC here to stay, may change form: HP CEO

A decade down the line, you may need not move around with your computer but rather use the walls around you, or the centre-table, to go online. HP CEO

Dion Weisler

, the man leading transformation, feels innovations will drive computing in the future as technologies such as virtual, augmented reality and 3D printing gain ground. In India, PM Narendra Modi's digital push is giving birth to a host of inventions that the $50-billion HP plans to take global. Excerpts:
There was a time when PCs were untouchable but today we have touch smartphones. Who would have thought that we could work without a QWERTY keyboard?

I think for some tasks, depending on the complexity curve, you need a QWERTY keyboard, (and) you just can't get everything done on a smartphone.So, depending on what you are doing, you need a different interface. Whether it's a goggle, glass or implant on your eyes, you are going to interface visually differently with your computing devices.Computing devices will be on all sorts of surfaces. This surface could be a computing platform -like a wall around you... So that's where I see this is going. There are new ways to interface.

What will happen to PCs?

PC

is not going away... it might change shape and form, but you are always going to use, and use, and compute. People will have multiple forms of computing that they will interface with in a day . Some they will physically touch, others they will just speak to and visually get cues. Your car is becoming a computing platform; computing is going to follow your entire life.

Do mobile phones excite you in the current period?
Not in the current format, because largely... there are one or two companies in the world that are making money and nobody else... We are a sustainable organisation and we can't do something that doesn't disrupt or provide differentiation. Making technology for technology's sake is not interesting. When we play , we play to win. What about your business in India?

Re-invention of India is beginning to show fruit for us. We are innovating across portfolio... It's a huge market of 1.2 billion people, very under-penetrated (and) we have been working in this market for 20 years. I have never seen the momentum like this country has right now.

What about innovations from India? Do you think there are innovation opportunities in India that can be taken up globally and are you doing something like that?
We are. We set up the Digital India division in 2016. It was designed around how do we invest to enable a digital transformation in India. The government has provided the platform, but they need partnerships to be able to make that transformation possible.It's not going to happen by itself, we have to invest in it.

In which markets do you intend to apply the learnings from India?
Initially to many other emerging markets because the team here is leap-frogging a generation of technology .They are kind of skipping one level and going to one level beyond, which I have not seen happening in any other emerging market.

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