Bangalore: Meg Whitman, the CEO of Hewlett-Packard, named Bill Veghte as the company's Chief Strategy Officer on Tuesday, following Shane Robinson’s retirement around 3 months ago. Veghte, who held various executive positions over his 2 decades at Windows, was largely responsible for the delivery and launch of Windows 7 according to HP.

Robinson, as the previous Chief Strategy Officer, molded HP’s research and development operations (i.e. HP Labs), and its mergers and acquisitions. The Wall Street Journal reported that when Robinson left after his 11 years at the company, HP said it would do away with the role of chief strategy and technology officer so it could make its large business units more autonomous. Veghte will retain his current post as the company’s Vice President of Software and will head the tech giant’s cloud and webOS open source mobile operating initiatives as the Strategy Chief. The webOS platform was opened up to developers and companies after HP acquired Palm (which developed the OS under Jon Rubenstein) in 2010.

Jon Rubinstein was later put in charge of product innovation as the Senior Vice President of Global Innovation for HP's Personal Systems Group; while Stephen De Witt was made the senior Vice President supervising the webOS Global Business Unit.

Although changes in management are common under new CEOs, the Wall Street Journal notes that changes in HP’s office are being closely monitored especially after its tumultuous past with LEO Apothekar as its CEO. Whitman, having been appointed in September last year, intends to bring back stability, by maintaining the tech giant’s present businesses and augmenting its software offerings. The firm said Veghte’s appointment emphasizes Whitman’s efforts, reported the Wall Street Journal. "HP intends to stay on top. I believe Bill has the knowledge and vision to keep us there", Whitman said.