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I don’t know where to start with this. However, what I can say is that, it is going to be all downhill for HP (HPQ) from here on.
Meg Whitman will be HP’s third CEO in less than two years. As was Carol Bartz, the third in a short span of years. We all know what a disaster Bartz was.
Like Carol Bartz, Whitman has no experience in the business she is at the helm of. In that business Oracle is doing to its competitors what Apple did to the mobile industry and is now doing to the rest of the technology industry.
I don’t know why Whitman is putting herself through this. The only plausible reason to me is that, she is trying to immortalize herself by trying to be the next “Steve Jobs”.
Whitman’s claim to fame was is that she was CEO of eBay during the easy days. These are not easy days for HP. I don’t know what she would do to turn things around. Basically, she is an “Obama”, there is nothing he can do save a sinking ship, although he will be blamed for it. I believe there is nothing Whitman can do to prevent HP from drowning.
Here is what a reader had to say about Whitman:
Meg was an merely adequate product manager, however. EBay had lots and lots of issues with consistency in their product. Like a bulldog chewing on somebody’s arm, she nagged and nagged about these issues until they were resolved. Of course, that’s what *any* product manager is supposed to do…
So in keeping with her prior mediocrity and oversold rep, she’ll just nag and nag various HP divisions about trivial items while ignoring the elephant in the room – the incompetent Board of Directors who micromanage day-to-day activities while spying on each other and inventing self-serving policies to benefit bad investments.
A strong CEO would get rid of them. I’m not a Steve Jobs fan, but he was right to come back to Apple and get rid of the Board. That was the right move.
Meg will be a disaster – not because she does something different, but because she’ll do what she did before: focus on the trivial and ignore the strategic. She can’t help it – that’s what she is.
Good luck Meg “Carol Bartz 2.0″ Whitman.
Channels: carol bartz, eBay, HP, meg whitman
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It is very clear to me that HP and Yahoo are having an identity crisis. By hiring "Evil Meg" as she was coined while leading eBay is one of several blunders HP has made. There is nothing "easy" about taking a company that has lost it's mojo and resuscitate it back to life – infusing it with fresh new energy with droves of people willing to follow Meg because she is so great to work for. No I'm sorry my friends this is not Meg Whitman.
Comment by jannko — September 27, 2011 @ 11:25 AM
Fantastic analysis! Like Yahoo, HP needs more than a tactical overhaul, it needs a completely new vision of itself. And a new board of directors. Meg is the least likely candidate imaginable, to find that new vision and execute it successfully. Or to fire the guys with whom she served on the board, who gave her the job.
While many other tech successes of the '60s and '70s have been diminished or closed since the PC took over so many business processes (think Xerox, Unisys, Burroughs, DEC, NCR), HP has somehow survived because of or in spite of the powerful, reactionary HP engineering culture. Meg has no credibility with them, and she would have to disassemble the company from bottom to top and reassemble it in a new form to succeed. Nothing in her history or that of the BoD would indicate a tolerance for such a wrenching revision of the HP business model. Sadly, she will preside over the demise of a formerly great company.
Comment by ScreenAngel — September 27, 2011 @ 11:39 AM
Hey … HP will soon be on Ebay … let the auction begin
Comment by RUS — September 27, 2011 @ 12:42 PM
Why compare two women CEOs while the valley is filled a lot of merely adequate male CEO who are much worse than Carol Bartz.
Comment by Schiff — September 27, 2011 @ 7:35 PM
You guys are nutso namby pamby.
To use the phrase of one of the earlier commenters, “Evil Meg” will nag and nag until the issues are resolved. A lot of people will hate her. That is exactly what a bloated HP needs. Then she will turn around and bite the Board. Just watch.
Comment by nkp — May 23, 2012 @ 11:09 AM