Hewlett-Packard, Past as Prologue, More Layoffs Inevitable

HP's sad saga following the disastrous decisions of Leo Apotheker and HP's Board of Directors in the past, have left Meg Whitman, its gallant current CEO, little choice but to struggle to move forward in a fast changing tech landscape. Meg is doing a good job under very trying circumstances, but unfortunately, the way forward will be to lay off a LOT MORE employees, slimming down the company to focus on core competencies, and to morph to Linux, Chrome OS, and Android devices, putting the disastrous Windows 8 in the dustbin where it belongs. Tragic mistakes of the past still haunting HP include buying Autonomy at an exorbitant price, buying Palm and then dropping WebOS devices -- just throwing away billions of dollars in shareholder money. If only HP had saved its money and bought Sun Microsystems and its Java software . . . . and then it would have been in a position to rescue BlackBerry and get its QNX OS -- but that it is all just part of what could have been, but for the disastrous leadership of HP's past --

Hewlett-Packard under fire after earnings report - SiliconValley.com: "Although HP wouldn't provide a current estimate of how many people it employs worldwide, its most recent annual report listed the total at 331,800. Even with the 29,000 positions it is eliminating, it still has nearly three times as many workers as the next biggest Silicon Valley employer, Oracle (ORCL)."

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Apotheker's Legacy of Wrecking HP Continues

Autonomy hasn't been the killer software product that HP pumped it up to be--Business Insider

Meg Whitman is doing all she can to set HP aright after all the damage Leo Apotheker did before he was finally fired (he should have never been hired in the first place--blame the HP board for that horrendous decision).  I just don't know how much more rough water HP is going to have to go through--PCs and copiers are not a booming market and Apotheker threw away webOS and hence destroyed HP's chance to compete in tablets and mobile--

" . . . the industry shift has rewarded upstarts like Amazon.com, which has become a premier cloud provider to business, and Apple, which reinvented itself with smartphones and tablets."(NYTimes)

If only HP had not hired Apotheker but a CEO who could have advanced webOS--HP: Replaces Autonomy Leader With Bill Veghte - Business Insider: "According to a recent report in Fortune, HP CFO Kathie Lesjak tried to stop HP from buying Autonomy for nearly $12 billion last summer, thinking the price was too high, but she lost that battle to then-CEO Leo Apotheker."--$12 billion down the drain. What a waste!

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A vote for Meg

Meg Whitman Back in Spotlight at H-P - WSJ.com: . . .

. . . . Ms. Whitman—a Silicon Valley veteran who turned eBay Inc. from a quirky start-up into an online auction giant—remains an influential figure in the technology scene as an H-P director and an adviser to a leading venture-capital firm. But the former eBay CEO also has little background in the hardware industry, never ran a company of H-P's size, made some missteps at eBay, . . .

So what? She's a lot better than the inept Leo Apotheker who I've written about here and here. Meg can calm a chaotic situation and bring some sanity to the technology giant. Meg may not be an aircraft carrier like Steve Jobs--but I think she will fool a lot of people and do just fine--and I wish her and HP the best!

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903703604576585142059755936.html#ixzz1Yi46fJoz

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