Meg Whitman, as quoted by Sean Gallagher at Ars Technica:

We aren’t as effective internally as we should be because of poor systems. We are not as competitive as we need to be in how we go to market because of our IT systems. We haven’t been using a compelling customer management or CRM system for years.

She has received some harsh criticism from industry watchers like John Gruber and MG Siegler for pushing back HP’s expected mobile phone launch to 2014 at the earliest.

That criticism is justified, especially given HP’s epic Palm/webOS fail.

But this is the most encouraging thing I’ve seen from HP in years: honest self-aware, long-term leadership commitment.

I say well done, Ms. Whitman. Now, call the caterer and lock some engineers in a room for the next year.