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HP Names Meg Whitman President and Chief Executive Officer

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Re: HP Names Meg Whitman President and Chief Executive Officer

#71

Post by count »

VladRussian wrote: post #66
T_S_ wrote: post #32

Will we ever rid ourselves of corporate-speak? How many bits of information here? “We are fortunate to have someone of Meg Whitman’s caliber and experience step up to lead HP,” said Lane. “We are at a critical moment and we need renewed leadership to successfully implement our strategy and take advantage of the market opportunities ahead. Meg is a technology visionary with a proven track record of execution. She is a…

>as a member of HP’s board of directors for the past eight months, Meg has a solid understanding of our products and markets. 8 months to solid understanding of HP products and markets?

Well, yeah, they don't make computers and just sell consulting services now - seems pretty simple to me!

Re: HP Names Meg Whitman President and Chief Executive Officer

#72

Post by Apple-Guy »

dgallagher wrote: post #61

HP appointed Meg Whitman as CEO earlier today, in an attempt to save the troubled computer maker. When asked what her first course of action would be, Mrs. Whitman firmly answered "eBay." "I'm an excellent eBayer, and have been for years. You've never seen a feedback profile with so many A+++++'s before." Mrs. Whitman continued, "HP has warehouses full of inventory, ready to be gobbled up by the highest bidder. On my…

Great one! Maybe she'll put the whole company on sale at eBay. But the HP board actually announced: "Meg Whitman has the right operational and communication skills and leadership abilities to deliver improved execution and financial performance." That'll surely turn HP TouchPad, Palm Pre, and WebOS around.

Re: HP Names Meg Whitman President and Chief Executive Officer

#73

Post by squeed »

nl wrote: post #68
0x12 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but you can bet that any manager that was about to plunk down a large amount of money for HP stuff with a sense of continuity is now looking at the competition. 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.

Not really. I work in this field, with lots of HP hardware, and its not even discussed. The lifecycle of new enterprise hardware is ~3 years. No one thinks HP would leave any enterprise customer screwed in the 3 year timeframe. Even if they sold the business everyone understands you will be supported that long. Also, companies change hands all the time in the enterprise market. We're used to it, and generally a chang…

You're both right. While it is true that for the hardware business, HP's stability is surely good enough. On the other hand, when it comes to enterprise contracts, stability matters a lot more.

I have at least some first-hand evidence to this fact. $DAYJOB is currently at a large enterprise service provider. We are currently buying HP switches like crazy, and I don't expect that to change. I've also been privy to some aspects of the sales process. We can go through the sales song and dance forever and ever, going deeper and deeper in to technical and business details. However, when the prospect asks about company stability, size, and governance, this always signifies they are about to ask for a formal contract.

In other words, for big, enterprise customers, stability matters. It's impossible to tell what sort of effect this will have on HP. Maybe none. But these sorts of subtle changes to reputation have a funny trajectory of their own, independent of the instantaneous news cycle. I wouldn't be surprised if IBM et al. started using the shake-up to their advantage during the sales process. We very well might see some of the after-effects in the next six months.

The way HP handles this transition will be critical. If the board looks like they are floundering, I think they will be toast. If they can keep up the appearance of running a tight ship, they'll be alright.

Re: HP Names Meg Whitman President and Chief Executive Officer

#74

Post by alttag »

cpeterso wrote: post #63
alttag wrote: post #38

I said earlier Whitman would be on my short list of bad choices for the job. I spent some time today thinking about who I would pick. Someone with experience at a product company, that had to oversee design, manufacturing, and logistics. (Ebay is clearly not this.) Also, someone with experience at a services company with a track record of success. (Despite service--and SaaS--experience, Ebay "survived" rather than "s…

> I spent some time today thinking about who I would pick. So who did you pick? I'm drawing a blank..

It's possible someone from Amazon, G.E., or Oracle would meet those criteria.

The big thing HP was (is) lacking is a leader with experience manufacturing physical products. Putting that in place would settle some of the fears of procurement managers the world over (and maybe settle the stock market too). These aren't the only companies with experience, but it's one place to look.

However, were I on the search committee, I'd look internally first. A junior executive who knows the company might already have the respect of the employees.

Given carte blanche, I'd remove the Board and most of the senior staff.

Re: HP Names Meg Whitman President and Chief Executive Officer

#75

Post by samstave »

shalmanese wrote: post #47
alanh wrote: post #10

Robert X Cringely quote† from 7 months back, posted earlier today by Gruber‡: > Then there’s Meg Whitman, who expected at this point to have resigned from the HP board to spend all her time running California as governor. But that didn’t happen, so now what is she to do? [...] She’ll eventually get around to hip-checking Apotheker and taking his job. † http://www.cringely.com/2011/02/why-leo-apotheker-will-be-fi... ‡…

This strikes me as an excellent demonstration of the "make as many wild ass predictions as possible until one of them hits and then have everyone think you're a visionary genius".

If you are sufficiently connected to massive amounts of information, it is possible to be able to see many possibilities and make accurate predictions which, given the right circumstance, can come true.

This doesn't mean that his predictions were so wild - but that reality was so drastically divergent than what would have been perceived to the future.

I.E. There are definitely times when one can extrapolate very accurately multiple/many possibilities given an assessment of the current state.

Connecting-the-dots.

Re: HP Names Meg Whitman President and Chief Executive Officer

#76

Post by slantyyz »

squeed wrote: post #73
nl wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. I work in this field, with lots of HP hardware, and its not even discussed. The lifecycle of new enterprise hardware is ~3 years. No one thinks HP would leave any enterprise customer screwed in the 3 year timeframe. Even if they sold the business everyone understands you will be supported that long. Also, companies change hands all the time in the enterprise market. We're used to it, and generally a chang…

You're both right. While it is true that for the hardware business, HP's stability is surely good enough. On the other hand, when it comes to enterprise contracts, stability matters a lot more. I have at least some first-hand evidence to this fact. $DAYJOB is currently at a large enterprise service provider. We are currently buying HP switches like crazy, and I don't expect that to change. I've also been privy to som…

It would seem to me that de-emphasis of the consumer side (i.e., psg and webos) to focus on the enterprise should have (in theory, at least) lead to greater confidence to enterprise buyers.

I don't know much about how smart a purchase Autonomy is (was?), but I do know that IBM has been acquiring data companies like crazy over the past 3 years.

Re: HP Names Meg Whitman President and Chief Executive Officer

#77

Post by slantyyz »

Element_ wrote: post #30
epistasis wrote: post #3

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…

The article in the NYT today reported that the board fully supported the decisions he had made but didn't like the way he was communicating the changes inside and out of the company. Whether or not that is the real reason they fired him is anyones guess I suppose.

OH at Apotheker's job interview...

HP Board: We think we want to focus on the enterprise, but we need a hatchet man to cut the consumer stuff. We know it's going to be unpopular and destroy your reputation, and we're going to fire you for doing that. We're willing to pay you about $30M for your trouble. You in?

Apotheker: Hell, yeah.

Re: HP Names Meg Whitman President and Chief Executive Officer

#78

Post by lancewiggs »

alttag wrote: post #38

I said earlier Whitman would be on my short list of bad choices for the job. I spent some time today thinking about who I would pick. Someone with experience at a product company, that had to oversee design, manufacturing, and logistics. (Ebay is clearly not this.) Also, someone with experience at a services company with a track record of success. (Despite service--and SaaS--experience, Ebay "survived" rather than "s…

I'd add: Someone who was and still is an engineer.

Re: HP Names Meg Whitman President and Chief Executive Officer

#79

Post by potatolicious »

eric-hu wrote: post #70
jeroen wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His total earnings from these 11 months seems to be $35 million. $9.8M in salary, signing bonus, etc, and $25.2M severence in cash and stock. source: http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/22/technology/hp_leo_apotheker_...

I figured he'd be well compensated, but wouldn't this mark the end of his career as a high level executive?

Carly drove the company into the ground too and doesn't seem to have trouble finding work even now.

For better or for worse, I don't think Apotheker will have trouble finding another company to run.

Re: HP Names Meg Whitman President and Chief Executive Officer

#80

Post by divtxt »

0x12 wrote: post #8

HP is as good as dead. It will take a long time to die but they're now officially the Yahoo! of hardware. Brand damage this severe is going to be very very hard to fix.

If you mean the death of the old HP, the 2008 acquisition of EDS was the formal declaration of HP's death.

The company named HP will not die anytime soon but that's irrelevant - it's just another large IT services vendor.

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