Memo to Meg: Top 5 Priorities for Hewlett-Packard's New CEO

Make sure you understand the "HP Way."  Make sure the HP founded in 1938 goes back to the principles of respect, integrity and willingness to accept good ideas from anyone. It also says, "We put our customers first in everything we do."

The HP you inherit is different from Lew Platt's company. Instruments are gone with Agilent Technologies. The PC business is now the world's No. 1. There's no more semiconductor business, because that's Avago Technologies.

So make sure you understand what current HP is all about. Not bad for the world's largest computer services business.

Tap the smarts of HP Labs. This has been one of HP's closely held secrets for decades, an R&D department focused on new products and mindful of the HP Way's focus on customers first.

HP Labs, under Joel Birnbaum, a former IBM researcher who ran into a brick wall there, helped make HP a computer powerhouse starting around 20 years ago by devising new chip technologies, making HP a workstation giant and ultimately a great computer company. That profoundly changed the company from an instrument and technical products house.

See what's there now, especially new efforts that have been reported, such as magnetic technologies, new computer packaging techniques, software and other "middleware" services.

So far in fiscal 2011, HP has spent more than $2.4 billion on R&D. Visit the Labs first!

Rely upon Ray Lane. Because you don't have the computer and software chops Ray Lane has as former president of Oracle, use him as your Executive Chairman. That's a first for HP and recognition that you need help getting up to speed.

Lane was Oracle's president for eight years, a period when founding Chairman Larry Ellison wasn't as interested in daily management as he is now. Lane has a math background and helped leverage Oracle into other software sectors beyond databases. You'd do well to let him be the senior counsel at all times.