Meg Whitman steers HP straight at the rocks

[Renew Deal]

If Captain Queeg and Captain Ahab were commanding the same ship, you wouldn't be surprised if it wound up on the bottom of the ocean. Now we have Captain Meg Whitman and First Mate Todd Bradley steering the SS Hewlett-Packard -- and one of Silicon Valley's iconic companies is lurching ever closer to the rocks.

Whitman's decision to merge the company's PC and printer divisions is without a doubt the worst business move the company could have made. (OK, it would have been worse to sell off the PC arm, but barring that. ... ) Whitman has taken two not really related businesses that need help and glued them together in a way that's sure to minimize their individual strengths and maximize their weaknesses.

Even worse, in Bradley she has chosen a second-rate executive -- remember his abysmal record at Palm? -- and put him in charge of a group that will be responsible for roughly 50 percent of the company's revenue.

There's a reason why it's generally a bad idea to hire a CEO who has no experience in the computer business to run a computer company. Not to be mean, but can't you just picture Whitman thinking: "Mmm, people connect their computers to their printers, so they're really kind of the same." D'oh!
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http://www.infoworld.com/d/the-industry-standard/meg-whitman-steers-hp-straight-the-rocks-189188

[xchrom]

1. HA! So long HP - we barely knew ye.

Feel damn bad for the workers.

[Cleita]

2. Vulture capitalism?

This seems to be the new business model. Institute policies that are sure to sink the company. Steal everything you can while the company is still flopping and when it dies, sell the corpse for what you can get and walk away with all the money you got in the meantime. The Bush family made their fortune this way. Don'tcha just love the Republican version of capitalism?

[drdtroit]

3. That's the kind of job I want!

Totally ruin and gut a giant company, get paid millions in compensation and then disappear. I love the sociopathic economic model of the USA!

[calimary]

4. Wow - what irony! Her partner in the last election, the hapless carly fiorina, was best known

for tanking Hewlett-Packard. She ran unsuccessfully for Barbara Boxer's Senate seat, at the same time meggie was trying in vain to beat Jerry Brown for CA governor in 2010.

Two peas in a pod, more than EVER!!!!

[cottage10]

5. Don't forget that Whitman is the same bimbo who spent $150 million

on her race for Gov of CA and was badly beaten by Jerry Brown who spent only about $30 million (in donations, not his own money). She lucked into the internet growth and Ebay growth, but it has been downhill ever since. She is a disaster and so is the entire HP board.

[eridani]

6. Oh fuck!! I've really liked my HP printers

And I thank heavens that their scientific instrument division (Agilent) was spun off before Fiorina got a chance to destroy it. Agilent is, luckily, doing pretty well.

[bottom line]

7. Snooty

If you live in Ca. & endured the election.
She's so Victorian era "Snooty." That wouldn't fly in New York. Had the best handlers $ could buy. it'd get a little better, then she'd relapse. It was hilarious. There are not many repuke images that remain in my memory and believe me it's a blurr, but at the small town's famous chili hot dog joint, cutting it up with a plastic fork & knife, then with pinkie finger extended. You have to give her credit for actually picking it up with her fingers. Never saw a face go through that many contortions. As they get.
That ebay was a juggernaut. It survived but still doesn't know that a check or money order is GOOD business.

[bottom line]

8. Also

Her goal was "the 1st woman President" Was it a premonition? She so should have run this year. Missed opportunities.

[Warpy]

9. I wondered why that idiotic announcement that they would drop their hardware divisions

to concentrate on software had been made, now I know.

I just want to know what the board of directors have been smoking that they haven't pulled the plug on these loons and sent them on their merry way, floating along on their golden parachutes.

It's a bad drug, I don't want any, thanks.