The new chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard said that his company needs to faster innovate and faster bring those innovations to market. The executive did not elaborate what innovations he was talking about and how long should it take a concept technology to reach a commercial product.

"We need to fire up our innovation engine and get our products to market faster. It is not that we are not innovative; it is that it takes too long to get to market. We have some weaknesses in our software portfolio. I think we need to be far more outspoken about what HP is all about. We did not do that for many years," said Leo Apotheker, chief executive officer of HP, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

Bringing innovations fast to market is obviously important, but companies like HP need to ensure quality of products and need to mind their prices in order to sustain scale of manufacturing.

There are three qualities of any final product for its creator: quality, affordability, time-to-market, of which only two can be combined in a single product. A product that features the latest and greatest technology and is well made will not be affordable; a product that is not expensive, but features advanced technologies is not brought to market rapidly; a product that sports all the bells and whistles and does not cost much is probably not made well.

Many consumers nowadays demand latest technologies in their personal computers, handsets and other gadgets, which is natural, but in many cases that results in very broad product lineups (which makes it hard to pick up the right devices) or short lifespan of products, which essentially lowers their actual potential since software makers quickly drop support for those devices.

Tags: HP, Hewlett-Packard, Business