Phil McKinney, chief technology officer of Hewlett-Packard's personal computer business unit, said on Monday that he would quit the company after about a decade of service. The reasons why Mr. McKinney quits are not revealed, but he joins a number of high-ranking executives from different HP divisions who decided to resign from the company.

"Earlier today, I announced that I will be retiring from HP. This is not the traditional retirement.  I’m not planning on spending my days playing golf or sitting around the house driving my wife crazy. I have far too much passion, energy and ideas to sit on the sidelines. My definition of retirement is the freedom to write, speak, mentor, advise and teach without the restrictions of the traditional employee/corporate structure," said Mr. McKinney in a blog post.

In helping grow the innovation culture at HP, Phil McKinney rivilege was a part of the teams that delivered some amazing innovations including: Blackbird, Firebird and Envy 133 personal computers, Gabble resource, Twynergy application, Pluribus stereo-3D live streaming technology, Vantage TouchWall, DreamScreen all-in-one Linux system and many more.

"My passion is to help innovators get better at innovating and I’ve spent the better part of the last dozen years fulfilling that mission. [...] So what am I going to do after HP? Repeat what I did at HP by helping others get better at innovation. [...] I am also excited that once again, I will be able to take on board seats, advisory roles and mentoring opportunities since I will no longer have to worry about conflict of interest and other corporate restrictions," added Mr. McKinney.

While it is a good news that HP decided to keep its PC business unit, it looks like the executives at the unit do not exactly agree on the new rules of the game. While nothing is known at present, it looks like HP wants to treat its PC business as a maker of commodity products that fully relies on innovations developed outside. This is not something completely new as it is known that HP has licensed some of its PC technologies to third-parties. Looks like the company does not have plans to offer breakthrough PCs, but concentrate on datacenter, enterprise and other types of innovations.

Tags: HP, Hewlett-Packard