HP Fire Carly Fiorina: Much Rejoicing (Apparently) [Archive]

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Jonathon Watkins

02-09-2005, 04:30 PM

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.thestreet.com/tech/hardware/10208131.html' target='_blank'>http://www.thestreet.com/tech/hardw...e/10208131.html</a> </div>"Carly Fiorina was ousted Wednesday as chairman and chief executive of Hewlett-Packard , ending a stormy six-year tenure that was marred by the heretofore unsuccessful acquisition of Compaq Computer. The shares rallied $1.57, or 7.8%, to $21.71 in morning trading." Well, this surprise announcement brings Carly's reign at HP to an end. Hopefully this will end the lackadaisical performance of the past few years. The stock market certainly liked the news. ;-) The initial reports suggests that HP's strategy will remain the same, but lets hope they can raise their game with regards to their Pocket PCs. They need to. Now, when discussing this news remember, play nicely and don't gloat too much! ;-)

daveshih

02-09-2005, 05:05 PM

Right? Kidding, right??? 8O

My goodness...too shocked to know what to say... 8O

daS

02-09-2005, 05:07 PM

"While I regret the board and I have differences about how to execute HP's strategy, I respect their decision," said Fiorina. "HP is a great company and I wish all the people of HP much success in the future."
I guess when she talks about "all the people of HP", she's not including the 17,000 she fired while lining her own pockets with millions of dollars.

Perhaps now, the company will return to its innovative roots and earn the "invent" tag she added to the logo while ousting the founders' names from the company.

Okay, I know you said no gloating, but as someone that grew up seeing Hewlett-Packard as a model of how a company could produce great products while keeping their employees happy and be a positive corporate citizen in the community, I hated the way that Carly distroyed all of that. Let's just hope it's not too late to turn the company around. :cry:

I'm sure that Bill and Dave are resting more in peace today than yesterday.

Darius Wey

02-09-2005, 05:12 PM

I looked at my calendar twice thinking it was April 1st. Nope - this one's fact, folks! ;)

Jonathon Watkins

02-09-2005, 05:24 PM

Okay, I know you said no gloating, but as someone that grew up seeing Hewlett-Packard as a model of how a company could produce great products while keeping their employees happy and be a positive corporate citizen in the community, I hated the way that Carly distroyed all of that. Let's just hope it's not too late to turn the company around. :cry:

Agreed. I worked for Hewlett-Packard (rather than the 'new' HP) for a year and I have been really saddened to see what has become of that formerly great company. Lets hope HP can pull out of the nosedive it. :)

Dazbot

02-09-2005, 05:24 PM

I saw this about 10 minutes ago at the register, can't believe someone at HP has seen sence at last. About time.

In a memo emailed to HP employees today, Wayman said that "in her six years as CEO, Carly has revitalized the company. She had a strategic vision that has given HP the capabilities to compete and win.

Yeah right. :roll:

Still its ove now, maybe the next line of Pocket PCs might actually be worth buying. I'm sticking with my 2210 till then.

dbrahms

02-09-2005, 05:28 PM

I hear her most recent project at HP was the Ipaq 6315 line... HAHAHAHA

jfreiman

02-09-2005, 05:41 PM

My fourth and LAST iPaq was going to be the 4150 (not even designed by HP) but now that they are under new control I am looking forward to some innovation that will make me want to upgrade.

I've already got a Windows Mobile Smartphone so it's not going to be easy.

Carley really did some major damage to both Compaq and HP - primarily Compaq a company I really admired.

It's not just her fault, the board must have approved everything too. She seems to be the center of it all, but it wouldn't surprise me to see others "go" soon too.

Jon Westfall

02-09-2005, 05:46 PM

I really doubt we'll see this impact Pocket PCs from HP in any direct way (Unless the new CEO is Jason...). Hopefully though, he/she can get things back on track and allow real innovation in all of their product lines.

whydidnt

02-09-2005, 05:51 PM

While I certainly think Carly did an awful job running the company and deserved to be fired long ago, I doubt that she had anything to do with the recent handheld line decisions.

HP releases literally thousands of new products every year, and mobile devices are such a small part of their business, I don't think she ever even knew or cared the specifics of what they were doing with this product line.

Now, if her successor has the insight to put the right person in charge of this division we could see change, but I don't think handheld devices are what the board was thinking about when they made this decision. They are more of an example of the overall problem that we all touch and feel.

Copter

02-09-2005, 05:51 PM

Is there news of who is going to take over? Or any other shake downs?

Jonathon Watkins

02-09-2005, 05:55 PM

Is there news of who is going to take over? Or any other shake downs?

Robert P. Wayman, the company's chief financial officer was named chief executive on an interim basis. Patricia C. Dunn, a director, was named nonexecutive chairman. Longer term they are looking for someone else. I vote for Jason. :wink:

Janak Parekh

02-09-2005, 06:01 PM

HP releases literally thousands of new products every year, and mobile devices are such a small part of their business, I don't think she ever even knew or cared the specifics of what they were doing with this product line.
Isn't that the problem, in a sense? HP grew to be too big for its own good with the merger. I remember the days when buying an HP product felt like you bought something they genuinely put effort into and something they would stand behind. (Anyone remember the old LaserJets... or the calculators... or their old servers, even?) While they continue to have great engineers in the handheld group, I feel like a lot of the marketing and support decisions have been half-baked and largely ignored -- not a good way to build a loyal base.

--janak

alabij

02-09-2005, 06:08 PM

The 6315 was definitely a failure. Not that Carly was personally responible for it. However there was talk about whether she really had much insight into the computer/technologu world. Yeah! she came from a technological background but how relevant was that to HP?
Either way she wins. She gets a 22million dollar severance package. Thats not too bad for putting a company as big as HP in the toilets.

buzzard

02-09-2005, 06:12 PM

Just a question (I haven't been around PPC's long enough to know :oops: )
Which PPC designs and products were better, HP's or Compaq's ?

Jonathon Watkins

02-09-2005, 06:19 PM

Just a question (I haven't been around PPC's long enough to know :oops: )
Which PPC designs and products were better, HP's or Compaq's ?

That question is just begging a huge flame-fest. :multi: :wink:

I could refer you to Jason's famous "My Favorite Colour is...." post (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4842&), but the shortest answer would be, whichever one you feel is best. :wink:

Lets not start another holy war guys.......

dlangton

02-09-2005, 06:27 PM

Which PPC designs and products were better, HP's or Compaq's ?

Jornada forever!!! :lol:

SHC

02-09-2005, 06:34 PM

Hmmmm......just looked in the drawer I keep my expired PDA's in (hope the wife never see's them all!). It has to be the Jornada, like the 4700 it has a metal case, it feels so solid and bullet proof...and (they) still work after the ipaq batteries died forever long ago.

corrosive

02-09-2005, 06:36 PM

Must admit I'm hoping this brings an upturn at HP - when they merged with Compaq I thought things would end up far worse than this, but on the other hand things could obviously be better :)

As far as iPaq vs Jornada, the iPaq was derived from the Itsy project wasn't it? Which was DEC's originally :)

http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-June/025229.html

I've been a long-time iPaq user, but also liked some of the thought that seemed to have gone into the Jornadas.

drop

02-09-2005, 06:45 PM

Patricia C. Dunn, a director, was named nonexecutive chairman. Longer term they are looking for someone else. I vote for Jason. :wink:

To divert flame war :lol:, what is a "nonexecutive chairman"?

Jonathon Watkins

02-09-2005, 06:45 PM

Guys, I don't want this thread to turn into iPaq versus Jornadas, OK? :)

Lets stay on topic (gently rejoicing) about Carly leaving (and Jason taking over).

daS

02-09-2005, 07:12 PM

To divert flame war :lol:, what is a "nonexecutive chairman"?
The Board of Directors of a public company represents the shareholders and hires the executives (CEO, EFO, president, VPs. etc.).

While it shouldn't be as common as it is, many companies mix the two groups and have the Chairman of the Board also be the CEO.

So a nonexecutive chairman is one that only serves on the BOD and therefore can do the job expected by the shareholders of providing oversight for the executive team.

Jon Westfall

02-09-2005, 07:48 PM

Patricia C. Dunn, a director,

... Patricia C. Dunn, an alias... :devilboy:

drop

02-09-2005, 08:18 PM

Ah, thank you. :D

boeman

02-09-2005, 09:45 PM

My first PPC was an IPAQ 3975. I really liked this PPC, but since they decided to not support WM2003SE on this PDA that I had purchased one and a half years earlier, I decided my next PPC wasn't going to be an IPAQ. I am now the owner of an Axim X50v. If they to make some changes i nthe business model and support PDA's for a longer period of time, my next PDA may just be another IPAQ.

That's my $.02

carphead

02-09-2005, 09:47 PM

When Carly took over HP/Compaq was the market leader in a number of fields all of those areas have been beaten by a number of companies...

INKJET - Lexmark/Dell
SERVERS - Dell
PC's - Dell (Okay HP weren't that good but Compaq where excellent for business)
LAPTOPS - Dell
NETWORK STORAGE - Everybody else including Dell
MONITORS - Dell / Sony
NETWORKING - Cisco (HP where and still pretty much bit players)

There are only a few areas that HP now do best.

LASER - Still nobody compares
PDA/POCKET PC - Dell ARE going to catch them.

You only need to look at the amount of badging that HP has done recently (IPOD) to see that they've grown to big to inovate.

I depresses me as Compaq where I company I really REALLY wanted to work for or with on all levels. I spent many happy times with their reps and knew that I could trust them. They introduced me to Pocket PC's and even when HP took over I felt that the sense of Compaq lived on.

But in the last year I've turned away from HP for most purchase both in business and pleasure.

I hope they do the sensible thing and spin-off the profitable sections such as servers and printers.

BTW - Compaq where better a :) nd Blue is my fav colour :wink:

Lex

02-09-2005, 10:22 PM

To divert flame war :lol:, what is a "nonexecutive chairman"?

It means "has lots of keys on her key-ring but the board has more authority".

Ripper014

02-09-2005, 11:17 PM

All I can say is that it is about time. Six years is a long time for the board not to realize something was wrong. It makes you wonder if perhaps they need a new board of directors too...

Mike Wagstaff

02-09-2005, 11:37 PM

Now, could HP kindly reunite the team who made the 200LX, please...?

unxmully

02-10-2005, 12:04 AM

golfingtigger

02-10-2005, 12:07 AM

I have enjoyed HP products from my calculus class 48GX (that I pinched every penny for) to my first online purchase (HP Pavilion) to my last iPaq (3800).

I must admit that I had a lot of doubt about the decisions of HP under the Fiorina legacy. The fighting, the dragging down of the name, the Compaq merger, the HP iPod including the jewel encrusted iPod for P. Diddy (http://www.engadget.com/entry/1915781701380881/). Their laptops are no longer the cream of the crop and their PC business is being run down by Dell and others.

Let's see some true innovation HP!

mcsouth

02-10-2005, 02:07 AM

There are only a few areas that HP now do best.

LASER - Still nobody compares
PDA/POCKET PC - Dell ARE going to catch them.

HP may still be the king of laserjets, but I personally think that is a dying market, unless you are talking about SOHO. Our company has shifted away from the hundreds of HP LaserJets that we had sprinkled around our numerous facilities, and they are all being replaced by......Xerox networked copiers. The copier right next to my office is a network copier, scan to e-mail, fax, and...oh yeah, a copier. Xerox is not the only company that is developing high end multifunction machines. Our company saw those as a way to dramatically reduce the number of units that we had to service and maintain, while adding new features, like the scan-to-email feature. By the way, our copier also does highspeed (35ppm) color copies too.......

Laserjets may end up being like Palms.....offers solid functionality, but long since replaced by other units that do more things better.....

As far as the PPC's are concerned, if someone at HP can see the error of their ways, and turn out some PDA's as great as their previous lineup, I will consider replacing my 1945 with an HP. Otherwise, there are too many other companies, like Dell, that offer units just as nice, and at much better prices, which is why I also have a Dell X50v.....

T-Will

02-10-2005, 02:38 AM

Great news! For some reason I never liked her from the beginning of her reign... I heard stories that the first thing she did was replace the carpet or paint the walls to be a more appealing color and to match better. Typical woman... ;)

airconvent

02-10-2005, 04:04 AM

Personally, I dont' use HP products anymore. They don't have the best printer, best scanner, best camera , etc but I'm still using my Jornada 568.
Its a damn pity that HP chose to drop the Jornada line when it merged with Compaq. The Jornada featured alot of cool features that were never brought to the Ipaq line. It was designed by an internal HP team from Singapore as compared with the Taiwanese HTC team that designed the Ipaqs.
Alot of talents were lost when they disbanded the Jornada team. I can't imagine what a great device they would have if only....
Is it too late for the resurrection of the Jornada line with her departure?

And another horrible thought came to me..what if the new guy at HP decided PDAs are not what they should focus on and end the line completely?

:roll:

Deemo

02-10-2005, 04:10 AM

02-10-2005, 04:34 AM

Great :lol: :lol:

I know several ex DEC guys who were well screwed by this woman. The only sad thing is that after ruining so many peoples lives, the greedy b***h is walking away with a ton of money.

Hewlet-Packard was a great company in it's day. I've used many of their products over the years. The only one I have now is an elderly, rather tired inkjet printer, that I keep as a backup to my Canon I9900.

Seems there are better printers now and Dell are beating them soundly in PCs and servers. "Invent" - what a laugh!!

Post edited for content by mod JR

bbarker

02-10-2005, 05:34 AM

davea0511

02-11-2005, 07:32 PM

I'm still using an HP LaserJet 4P as a second printer at home. It must be 13 years old and it works great, albeit slowly (4 pages per minute). Newer HP printers are fine, but they no longer have a big edge over others.

I much preferred my Jornadas to the iPaqs of that era but the iPaq had a much larger user base. Each line had its advantages and unique features.

Consider: what if the merger hadn't occurred and those two strong design and marketing teams continued to compete? Can you imagine how much more better each would be by now?

That's what Steve Jobs did at Apple to spur innovation and quality. He created cross functional teams and rewarded those with the best results. The result: the macintosh computer - even today I look back and marvel about how perfect of a machine it was. Pure genius. ... and this coming from me, a die-hard IBM clone freak who goes ballistic at the very thought of proprietary technology and standards.

It's a shame Carly didn't apply the same technique at HP when she took over. Just think how much further things would be. As it was, the merger eliminated competition which always hurts the consumer.

daS

02-11-2005, 08:10 PM

Consider: what if the merger hadn't occurred and those two strong design and marketing teams continued to compete? Can you imagine how much more better each would be by now?

That's what Steve Jobs did at Apple to spur innovation and quality.
...
It's a shame Carly didn't apply the same technique at HP when she took over. Just think how much further things would be. As it was, the merger eliminated competition which always hurts the consumer.
You don't even have to go to Apple for that. HP itself grew almost as a holding company for a number of autonomous divisions. The company started making test equipment and the printer group was started as a "grassroots" effort at the local level.

Carly didn't need to apply the same technique at HP, she just needed to avoid destroying it. :roll:

airconvent

02-12-2005, 05:43 PM

That's what Steve Jobs did at Apple to spur innovation and quality. He created cross functional teams and rewarded those with the best results.
It's a shame Carly didn't apply the same technique at HP when she took over. Just think how much further things would be. As it was, the merger eliminated competition which always hurts the consumer.

wow....didn't you watch "Pirates of Silicon Valley"?
i hate to think the show is purely fiction but the way the apple teams were managed in that show, I don't think that would have been compatible with I perceived was HP's original philisophy.."to build great products with happy and innovative staff"...oh well...

KimVette

02-13-2005, 03:00 AM

When Carly took over HP/Compaq was the market leader in a number of fields all of those areas have been beaten by a number of companies...

INKJET - Lexmark/Dell[/b]

HP and Lexmark suck equally as much wind now. Both brands chip their cartridges with both expiration dates (do NOT buy ahead, I'm warning you!) and with a limited number of passes of the printhead. You printed only 3% coverage, the tanks are still half-full, but you exceeded the allocated number of printhead passes? Tough dookie, you have to replace the cartridge.

I have one HP printer and one Lexmark printer here that are considered high-end but for which I will never buy another cartridge again. I switched to Canon printers (i860 and very soon the i9100 replacement to accompany it for large-format prints).

PC's - Dell (Okay HP weren't that good but Compaq where excellent for business)

Dell is the Hyundai of the computer industry; you get a lot of features for your money (on the low/consumer end, that is) that other brands can't touch, but long-term reliability is questionable at best, and maintenance/repair is pricy when it comes to major parts (e.g., motherboard, proprietary power supply, etc.). Their servers are equally proprietary but a) overpriced for what you get and b) the reliability is better than the other major brands. If you want a truly reliable server that Just Works(tm) go with off-the-shelf FoxConn, SuperMicro and Adaptec parts.

LAPTOPS - Dell

17% failure rate on the low end (Latitudes, cheaper Inspirons)
4% failure rate on the high end (higher-end Inspirons)

Go with Spartan - <2% failure rate across the board. Spartans are hard to find though - they're generally renamed to dealers' own house brands (e.g., Hollywood laptops for example - the Spartan model they sell for $6500, we sell for under $3,000)

NETWORK STORAGE - Everybody else including Dell

The PowerVaults ARE nice, but the perc cards leave a lot to be desired. The PowerVault documentation stinks as well - if you want to set up a cluster using Dell hardware, throw the perc and powervault manuals away because you have to do everything exactly the opposite of what the manual says to do. It took me 12 hours to set up a cluster with Dell equipment because I was following directions, when on other installations, with equipment I built myself, the cluster took only a couple of hours from beginning to end. Wih that said though, once you have Dell powervaults up, they Just Work(tm).

MONITORS - Dell / Sony

Higher-end ViewSonic (I *heart* my P815 monitors), Apple.

There are only a few areas that HP now do best.

LASER - Still nobody compares

We have a Laserjet 4P here - and it's great. Unlike the newer HP lasers, the old toner cartridges are not chipped with any expiration date, and the printer is RELIABLE.

When we go with a color laser, we're going Kyocera. Unlike HP, the toner cartridges are not chipped. In fact, the toner cartridges for Kyocera printers are designed for long life, and need replacing only after many hundreds of thousands of prints. Kyocera sells JUGS of toner which you use to refill the cartridges. They make money by building SOLID reliable workhorse printers whose output you would confuse with presses, were it not for the sheen characteristic of toner.

PDA/POCKET PC - Dell ARE going to catch them.

You mean Foxconn, who makes the PDAs for most brands. HTH! ;)

BTW Dell already HAS surpassed HP when it comes to PocketPC features and quality. When HP killed off the 55xx, they took a HUGE leap backwards.

You only need to look at the amount of badging that HP has done recently (IPOD) to see that they've grown to big to inovate.

Considering that FoxConn makes most of HP's components, and has for eons, where do you come up with that? Did you know that when you buy an HP laptop or PDA case, you're buying a Targus-manufactured bag? Does it matter?

HP comes up with a design spec, and farms it out for production. If someone else (Apple) has created a new market, and HP can gain penetration by leveraging an already-designed product, a product which is protected by patents and therefore protected for 17(?) years, it'd be foolish for them NOT to license Apple's technology.

I depresses me as Compaq where I company I really REALLY wanted to work for or with on all levels. I spent many happy times with their reps and knew that I could trust them. They introduced me to Pocket PC's and even when HP took over I felt that the sense of Compaq lived on.

One thing I really liked and now miss was Compaq's quality assurance labs. When they were not in the middle of a cycle, they'd rent out the labs to other companies (and it was quite inexpensive when compared to alternatives). When I worked for a particular knowledgebase company, we rented the Compaq testing lab with a BUNCH of quad and eight-way servers for load testing so we could improve scalability - by using resources intelligently, Compaq was:

1. Making money off of otherwise-idle resources
2. farming customer loyalty by providing hardware in the labs (hey, if you stress test on Compaq servers and know your product is 100% compatible, would it not be foolish to NOT buy Compaq products for in-house use, and recommend Compaq servers for clients when you deploy product?
3. Actually, in effect, testing their own equipment with customers' software - an intelligent way to focus on compatibility and long-term reliability!

But in the last year I've turned away from HP for most purchase both in business and pleasure.

By firing off Fiorina, HP may very well have saved themselves. I'll be looking at their new generations of printers very closely (chipping consumables was one of Fiorina's hare-brained schemes) and if they become more consumer-friendly I will be an HP customer again.

[/b]I hope they do the sensible thing and spin-off the profitable sections such as servers and printers.

BTW - Compaq where better a :) nd Blue is my fav colour :wink:

Blue? Blasphemy! EVERYONE knows that PURPLE is the best color!

Oh, and to commemorate the ejection of Ms. Fiorina from HP:

Ding Dong! The Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.
Wake up - sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. She's gone where the goblins go,
Below - below - below. Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know
The Wicked Witch is dead!

donbacardi

02-13-2005, 09:19 AM

daS

02-13-2005, 04:19 PM

Personally, I regret to see her "get" booted out in such a fashion. As a man, I respect women who can reach all the way up to any top level executive management position as Carly did. I feel that the merger with Compaq was what "sealed" her fate eventually. Compaq went downhill soon-after.
When Carly was first appointed to her position at HP, I too applauded the company for being the first in the Fortune 500 to place a woman at the top. However, her mismanagement and personal greed at the expense of thousands of employees and the destruction of the morale @ HP changed my mind.

So while I like to see women obtain high positions, I don't believe in giving them a "pass" for behavior and actions that would get them fired if not for their gender.

The bottom line is: I think that Carly got the job because she was considered the right person for it - regardless of her gender. If she was not fired until now because of her being a women, then I think it did the cause of equal rights a huge disservice.

airconvent

02-13-2005, 05:21 PM

frankly, I am already peeved about the emphasis that she is a woman and how the decisions were made based on it. for goodness sake, she is the CEO...the person where the buck stops. she has the responsibility to build value and earn profit for the company. man or woman, when the boss don't deliver, someone else will step in the do the job (or try to do it).
its not about the gender, the personality, products, capability...its about money or the loss of making them that did it....
it happened to steve job too and not only is he a man, he was the founder too!
ok...rant over...sorry... :D

bnycastro

02-14-2005, 03:04 AM

saw a news report about this on CNN last week anyway the host (a lady) was trying to spin it off as a gender based decision good thing the analyst (which was also a lady) said that it was not. anyway i hope hp picks a good one this time and starts to litsen to their customers more.

Jonathon Watkins

02-14-2005, 12:22 PM

Oh, and to commemorate the ejection of Ms. Fiorina from HP:

Ding Dong! The Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.
Wake up - sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. She's gone where the goblins go,
Below - below - below. Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know
The Wicked Witch is dead!

I was wondering when you would turn up Kim. :wink:

I too hope that HP will revert back to the great company they once were. This nickelling and dimming customers to death must stop! Step up to the plate HP!

KimVette

02-14-2005, 10:03 PM

[b]

I was wondering when you would turn up Kim. :wink:

I too hope that HP will revert back to the great company they once were. This nickelling and dimming customers to death must stop! Step up to the plate HP!

I actually posted the first thread on this subject, BTW. The original two threads (another user and I posted on it within minutes of each other) were closed in favor of this thread. :mad: :gripe: :pout: :moan: :D