http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/technology/hewlett-packard-board-meets-on-replacing-ceo.html?_r=1&ref=technology
The New York Times is reporting that HP's board will fire Leo Apotheker and replace him with Meg Whitman, founder of Ebay.
Starting in 1975, I designed electronic circuits, and came to revere Hewlett-Packard. Every time I saw one of their products, it was elegant, amazingly capable, and fairly priced. The company was just a fountain of innovation and energy.
Even today, after a decade of bad management by the Board, it is one of the largest technology corporations in the world. And yet, it has just dumped its tablet effort, and is talking about abandoning PCs all together. It says it will focus on software, when that accounts for only 2% of its revenue, and it is one of the most skilled hardware companies in the world.
I feel that HP is one of our national treasures, and it pains me in a somewhat personal way to see the company go through wave after wave of bad decisions from its Board. Is there any way to stop the insanity? An intervention? A stockholder revolt? Or will HP just die a multi-decade death of a thousand cuts?