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Ah, been a while since we had such an entertaining high profile trainwreck in progress to watch. What the hell is the board thinking?
"A while" being days, assuming Yahoo counts. Of course, there's the ongoing smaller trainwreck waiting to happen called RIM. --edit-- let's not forget Netflix either.
Not a good move. He started his job by doing some hard upfront decisions that he hoped will play in HP advantage in the long run. And the board cut him off at the point when he didn't even started the transformation. Now, who knows what will happen. The other possible explanation is that he knew that he is going to be scraped, and had enormous compensation for receiving the blame.
A cynical person would surmise that HP knowingly hired Apotheker to be a sacrificial lamb. A lamb that would make a few unpopular board-supported decisions (to the public and stockholders) yet leave the board's hands clean once that lamb was fired.
Not a good move. He started his job by doing some hard upfront decisions that he hoped will play in HP advantage in the long run. And the board cut him off at the point when he didn't even started the transformation. Now, who knows what will happen. The other possible explanation is that he knew that he is going to be scraped, and had enormous compensation for receiving the blame.
I like your second explanation. A cynical person would surmise that HP knowingly hired Apotheker to be a sacrificial lamb. A lamb that would make a few unpopular board-supported decisions (to the public and stockholders) yet leave the board's hands clean once that lamb was fired.
Scapegoat, in the vernacular. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scapegoating : a she-goat with a silver bracelet hung from her neck was driven forth into the wasteland ...
They'll make it gold, and probably spare the sex change ...
So, this board has recently brought in a software guy who doesn't seem a good fit for a company that does a lot of hardware, had him make a bunch of unpopular decisions, then quickly replaced him with somebody that's been on the board for quite some time, without reversing any of the previous "damage" that Apotheker is being blamed for. Apotheker appears to be the fall guy for some unpopular decisions that the board…
HP does a lot of hardware on the consumer side, but they've been doing quite well in the enterprise without much ballyhoo. And the margins are way better in the enterprise than on the PC side (not counting "the ink is worth more than unobtainium" side of their business).
The kind of boat-rocking that HP is engaging in is every corporate buyers nightmare and will cause a lot of sleepless nights in the houses of people procuring their enterprise product line.
I'm sure the HP board is full of smart people, so my question is: what's next? Over the past decade they've seemingly made so many more poor decisions relative to good decisions, I have to imagine they feel a lot of heat to do something... redeeming? I mean, they're still a very large and very powerful company, and I think predictions of their impending doom are highly overblown, but they've certainly been dealt some…
HP's board might be full of smart people who make stupid decisions. HP's board started the decline by hiring Carly Fiorina, being a part of the pre-texting scandal, hiring and then firing Hurd, and now hiring and firing Apotheker. Perhaps it's time to clean house at the board level.
I'm sure the HP board is full of smart people, so my question is: what's next? Over the past decade they've seemingly made so many more poor decisions relative to good decisions, I have to imagine they feel a lot of heat to do something... redeeming? I mean, they're still a very large and very powerful company, and I think predictions of their impending doom are highly overblown, but they've certainly been dealt some…
HP's board might be full of smart people who make stupid decisions. HP's board started the decline by hiring Carly Fiorina, being a part of the pre-texting scandal, hiring and then firing Hurd, and now hiring and firing Apotheker. Perhaps it's time to clean house at the board level.
Right now there are a number of very tough decision to be made and none of those are good. Either the former CEOs decisions will stand and then someone without that vision will have to implement them, the former CEOs decisions will be rescinded (it looks like they will stand for now) or there will be some magical third option.
For the moment the best thing about HP is that they are still selling ink, toner cartridges and enterprise gear and I wouldn't bet too long on the latter (see above).
You simply can't run a company like this, even a very big one. Employees, customers and 'the channel' want to see stability.
What I find funny about such rapid changes is, can they reverse any of his decisions? For instance, will HP magically announce they're not really leaving the PC business and will be shipping new tablets?
So, this board has recently brought in a software guy who doesn't seem a good fit for a company that does a lot of hardware, had him make a bunch of unpopular decisions, then quickly replaced him with somebody that's been on the board for quite some time, without reversing any of the previous "damage" that Apotheker is being blamed for. Apotheker appears to be the fall guy for some unpopular decisions that the board…