Memo From Meg: Top 6 Priorities for Hewlett-Packard

Now that we've announced HP's full-year results for 2011, here's what we have to do to get back on course:

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Focus on running a united company. The HP I inherited had some great businesses in computing, imaging, printing and services but it didn't look as if they were all well-knit and working together. Now we need to do better, so as to provide a better one-stop-shop to enterprises, compete better against IBM and watch that Apple doesn't start eating away at our place in the PC business. And Larry Ellison at Oracle doesn't beat us in software and analytics

"We have to get back to doing what we do really well," I said on the earnings call. Well, we need to coordinate better. Now that I have Ralph Whitworth, an activist shareholder, on my board, someone tough will be looking at me at every directors meeting.

Determine where HP will play in tablets and other new products. We took a huge, $3.3 billion one-time charge, including $1.64 billion to account for the acquisition of Palm. My predecessor botched the HP TouchPad, which was supposed to be the answer to the iPad line.

But we're going to get back into the tablet sector next year relying on Microsoft's Windows 8 OS for tablets.

The numbers make the case: although our Personal Systems Group (the PC line) is the world's largest, growth is negligible. Meanwhile, market researchers like IHSiSuppli predict the tablet sector will skyrocket 245 percent to 60 million units this year, giving Apple a 75 percent share, and to 275 million by 2015.

HP would be crazy not to have a tablet for consumers and corporate buyers. The TouchPad "fire sale" proved there is demand for a below-$499 tablet. Amazon looks on the way to success with the Kindle Fire.

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.