This would be great news if it happens, seems HP is considering replacing their CEO. I don’t know if Meg Whitman would be a good candidate or not that’s not really my area of expertise, but Leo’s reign has been a disaster to-date, not only for the company, but the customers, and their stock price.
Not that the previous CEO was good, he was terrible too, being known for slashing budgets, cutting corners for short term profits, and killing morale across the company. HP execs seem to be doing everything they can to kill the company.
I’m seeing on CNBC “Significant number of HP board members want to replace Apotheker”. Which is somewhat ironic considering people believed that Leo recently rebuilt the board around people that would support him. I guess they may not be so loyal after all.
If the CEO goes hopefully goes the bid for that UK software company Autonomy – HP should re-invest in their own stuff, several folks have pointed out the lack of HP’s R&D in recent years has almost forced HP to acquire a lot of companies and in the end they pay a much higher premium for that vs doing things themselves, just look at how much HP has spent on acquisitions vs IBM (the data for both is incomplete but the trend shows HP running at about double the rate of IBM for what data is available.
HP has Vertica, they have 3PAR, they could use some more advanced networking stuff 3COM just isn’t there, nor is Procurve (I still believe HP bought 3COM for nothing more than market presence in China).