After the Apple event in Cupertino, I drove about 15 minutes up highway 280 to HP's headquarters in Palo Alto, to attend a media event hosted by HP Labs. HP actually flew in dozens of reporters from around the world for this event and a private tour of HP's original garage in downtown Palo Alto. Usually, HP Labs doesn't get that much of attention compare to other HP events.

HP's new marketing chief, Michael Mendenhall (pictured), kicked off the event, setting the stage to the Labs latest major revamp.

"This, redesign is intended to do 2 things. One, is to balance exploratory research with this entrepreneurial approach to breakthrough technology. And it's going to allow us to more rapidly transfer this technology to the marketplace, to the end users, our customers... And when you look at research and development today, there's only a handfull of companies today that are dedicated to a research facility in-house. And I can probably say that none of those really have the breadth of portfolio and can address and simplify all the technology experiences from the Mom who's at home, who wants to have help organised her digital pictures, all the way up to the CIO of a Fortune 500 company... This is what differentiates us and sets us apart is HP Labs", said Mendenhall.

The new identity is a play on a mathematical equation and is intended to translate the belief that,

"At HP and all of their innovators will take the power and the broad technology portfolio that we have, here at HP... and bring that extensive knowledge to the marketplace... Our goal is to make a meaningful contribution to the IT industry, to our customers and to the bottom line of HP".