Hewlett - Packard CEO Leo Apotheker was oust from his position on Thursday and replace by HP theatre director and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman , less than a year after he took the job .
Rumors had twiddle in recent day that HP ’s board was about to part way with Apotheker , a former CEO of business software seller SAP . Only a tiny amount of HP ’s business currently amount from package , a fact Apotheker seek to change in a strategy he laid out soon after joining the company in September 2010 .
Apotheker came to HP at a churning time follow the departure of its high - profile CEO , Mark Hurd , after a scandal involving his kinship with an HP declarer . Hurd ended upsecuring a situation as co - president of HP rival Oracle .
The grocery store did not respond well to a number of announcements and moves Apotheker made , include theplanned purchase of infrastructure software vendor Autonomy and talk of the town of spin off HP ’s microcomputer partitioning . This last theme sparked a major downturn in HP ’s stock damage , which may have quickened Apotheker ’s removal .
Overall , the HP experience must have had an chemical element of déjà vu for Apotheker , collapse the trouble he get as sole chief executive officer of Germany - ground SAP .
A long - time SAP executive , Apotheker at long last lasted less than a yr in the top post there as well , and was replaced by insiders Jim Hagemann Snabe and Bill McDermott in February 2010 as SAP returned to the co - CEO format it had used in the yesteryear .
“ I mean that Apotheker derive into something of a ungrateful job , ” said Charles King , chairman and principal analyst with Pund - IT . “ It ’s difficult for any chief operating officer to come into a caller that is in turmoil , which HP clearly was after the ouster of Mark Hurd . ”
Still , moves such as the possible PC business spinoff “ may simply have been too radical a operating theater for the market to digest , ” King impart .
Other bounteous factor leading to the modification in leadership were HP ’s miss its financial targets in three recent one-fourth and paying a lot of money to get cryptical into the software business through acquisitions like Automony and Vertica without giving a percipient strategy for the time to come , according to IDC analyst Crawford Del Prete .
“ There was probably an underreckoning on the ship’s company ’s part and on Leo ’s part … about how hard this transformation would be , ” Del Prete said . “ They have n’t been able to efficaciously pass their strategy and vision . ”
“ Investor assurance is a very difficult matter , ” he add . “ When it starts to get wear away , it ’s very difficult for that person to get assurance back . ”
Beyond Wall Street , the idea also likely shift up some worry among HP ’s client base , said analyst Ezra Gottheil , senior analyst at Technology Business Research .
“ They are the large personal computer trafficker in the world , the most profitable after Apple , ” he suppose . “ Talking about spinning that off without any resolution on it was a surprise . How would you as a customer have responded ? I consider they are worried . They took a very large install base and client base , and they made them wonder . ”
There ’s also the enquiry of whether such a move would fully do as a way for HP to throw off its image as a consumer company , according to King .
Much of HP ’s $ 40 billion PC business “ is pull through enterprise hand , ” he said . “ If it was spin off , it ’d still be intimately connected to other HP sale and client relationships . There ’s no elbow room to separate it entirely , especially the part of HP services that deals with customer deployment and management . In a way , it would make mother wit just to keep it , and keep range on . ”
“ It may be the lowest - border business in HP but it ’s still profitable , ” he added . “ Letting it sink in in the desktop may be the smarter move . ”
Moreover , getting disembarrass of its PC variance could hurt HP ’s host business because the ship’s company depends on mellow - volume supply relationships with component manufacturing business , IDC ’s Del Prete said . It ’s probable to bruise the companionship ’s printing machine patronage because PCs help to cement honest deal with retailers such as Best Buy that also sell HP printers .
Overall , it ’s still potential that Whitman will continue pushing HP to become more of an go-ahead caller , King suppose . “ That ’s clearly where the net income are . ”
The choice of Whitman as chief executive officer is a bit of a mixed bag , according to King .
“ One one side , she ’s a known entity and she ’s plain get important experience in running a multi - billion dollar foot race charge per unit company at eBay , ” he said .
However , Whitman has very little in her background that make her a good couple for a company of HP ’s size of it , nor does is she “ deeply experienced in the enterprise IT space , ” he said .
Moreover , Whitman made an unsuccessful run for the governorship of California , but “ has continue to discuss her political ambitions , ” King enunciate .
Therefore , it ’s possible that Whitman will provide HP with some “ star power ” in the CEO ’s chairperson while the caller display panel guide the broader scheme and sets about finding a more permanent chief executive officer , grant to King .
One first tone for HP and Whitman could be to reassess the company ’s core personal computer and WebOS businesses and continue developing a strategy around software and the swarm . Another could be to provide a clear statement on the guidance of HP without countermine live business sector .
Apotheker fumble the webOS software system and hardware business , which was bought from Palm by former CEO Hurd , said Roger Kay , president of Endpoint Technologies Associates . HP has now killed its WebOS pad of paper and smartphones , leave only the software element .
The troupe has pronounce it was see into retaining webOS software and licensing it to third party . If HP want webOS to be a third - party platform , the troupe could ’ve done it some clip ago . But very few equipment Divine desire to license it , Kay said , adding that it stands little chance against other mobile weapons platform such as Apple ’s Io and Google ’s Android .
“ Nobody wants to license that matter . If they do n’t build their own hardware and ca n’t certify it , they bought Palm for nothing , ” Kay said .
locomote forwards , HP has some other options , including “ a long - shot possibleness to become a leader in initiative swarm as an anchorman of a orotund ecosystem of Cartesian product and services , ” say Forrester Research analyst Frank Gillett in a statement . “ They could buy Amdocs for enhanced billing and monitoring ; but buying SAP still does n’t make good sense . ”
But there could be radioactive dust for HP ’s board due to Apotheker ’s “ sudden remotion , ” Bernstein Research write in an psychoanalyst short letter released before HP made the proclamation .
“ The possible sudden remotion of Apotheker as CEO — and the fact that such Board discussions were once again leak to the press — are likely to further undermine the Board ’s already fragile credibleness , ” the note states . “ Our conversations with major shareholders also indicate that they have been disgruntle with the Board , given it has made and approved a serial of decisions ( Hurd ’s firing ; Leo ’s hiring ; approval of the Autonomy acquisition ; the premature declaration of the way out of the microcomputer business ) that many shareholders believe were misfortunate decisions and misalign with their interestingness . ”
( Agam Shah in New York , Stephen Lawson in San Francisco and Robert McMillan in San Francisco contributed to this report . )
Chris Kanaracus cover enterprisingness package and cosmopolitan technology breaking news for The IDG News Service . Chris ’s tocopherol - chain mail destination isChris_Kanaracus@idg.com .
