Rumor: HP Looking To Fire CEO After Less Than A Year

Well, Duh!

They need to focus on their home PC and tablet business, that was a mistake, team up with Windows 8 and take Apple head on... I should throw my hat into the ring for this job.

"My Meg Whitman, what big teeth you have," says Leo. "The better to eat you with, my dear," says Meg.

i bet the stock will go up higher than last time they fired there CEO

Heck make me CEO. Even I'd do a better job

i always route for HP to go out of business so i agree hire this guy

Are you sure? You would probably have to quit your day job as an internet troll. BTW, HP already sacked their PC and tablet business. Maybe you could bring it back. Derp.

Perhaps the fact that they are putting Meg up as the next runner-up should prove that the Board is the problem as they do not know what they are doing!
Meg lucked in on a new idea, and managed to bring it to market. When it became successful she could not handle the business, and the business was better off without her when she left. But even being better off it is still the most backwards unfriendly site I have ever used in my life.

HP has always been the poor mans dell. And dell has always been crap (with the exception of their business class hardware which is quite usable, and actually has real customer support). And when you are in the position of being a poor mans crap then there is plenty of room for improvement. Even small improvements would be highly noticeable. Not saying it isn't possible to fix, but my bet is that they flounder for 10 more years before becoming the next gateway where you hear their name and think "wait... didn't they go out of business a while back?"

It really is actually painful to watch a historic and important technology company like HP wither and die due to the utter incompetence of the BoD and the executive leaders they have had over the past couple of decades.

I am BEGGING, no PLEADING for the families of Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard to get involved and somehow take back control of the company before it is completely too late to save HP!

Are we supposed to believe that HP can find NO qualified, worthy successors to this latest dope Mr Apotheker somewhere within the company, someone who actually cares about the products and the people? I don't believe it for ONE minute.

When it comes to the PSG products think a more premium version of ZT Systems offerings. Assemble the product in the USA and use ONLY US based tech support, also drop the cheapest offerings and streamline the rest of the middle and premium offerings using higher quality hardware. Perhaps some products for folks who would like to build their own but like the fact that there is a solid warranty and good support if needed.

What took hp board so long to dump this idiot.

ill make a bid for ceo.

first off, revive the pc department.
second, take a serious look at the tablet land scape and find a GOOD solution.
third, move over to amd exclusively, with the exception of extreme high end, and cuda necessary software

everything we ship will have an apu in it, as to cut the cost of production and make even that cheap pos the family gets because they need a computer, able to play nearly any game at reduced graphical settings. but shipping with 4gb of ram.

mid range we will go phenom II 3.2 ghz minimum and a 6770 gpu, and 8gb of ram

high end we will go bulldozer, as it would be out by the time the pc department is revived, and a 7850 on a mother board that can be upgraded to crossfire, shipping with 16gb or ram

now for the tablet/phone land scape, we have to do some real thinking. if its not patented, i want to have a iphone/touch device, that plugs into a tablet, laptop, and gaming shell. market it as the first real gaming phone, and market the peripherals (the shells) as compatible with future iphones/touches. not saying the shells wont get upgraded models too, but thats not important.

for the tablet specifically, i would see if we can license off wacom tech, as a wacom tablet would be epic.

for the laptop side, there would be 2 versions, one that converts a tablet into a laptop, and one that is just laptop.

but thats just what someone who wants to make a good company and make user benefiting decisions would do.

I really can't say much, I don't know if I actually want HP to survive in the PC market or not. I always thought the company was charging ridiculous amounts of money for it's rigs that were really nothing more than Mass Modded or Beautified uglies of the past. Just like Dell, most of these so called PC companies thrive of the hard earned money of the common family man who has no particular knowledge of PC tech. They survive on the ignorance of hardworking people, and that's not too good, in my books. So lets just say if HP does become a gateway , it's just getting what it deserves from my PoV.
On the other hand if they were to implement major policy changes and divide the company into area centered units, it'd be way easier to reduce the prices of products and offer better after sales services to millions of very upset customers. and do a little good to the company and it's image as a whole.
Changing heads is just like blaming it on rio, you can change one head of the company every month and blame all the crap on the last one, it won't do them any good though.
Make one stick and make him see the company through thick and thin. and if one head is not sufficient get a few more to handle other stuff.
I'd say make it work.
And.....
Make it work way better than it was before this.

Everyone talking about PCs and tablets just doesn't understand how low margin they are. HP can make way more money in other sectors.

i agree with CaedenV 1st sentence comment. Maybe the problem is HP's board. Their front runner doesn't have much experience on hardware business. Coming from eBay, maybe if things get really worst, she can auction off HP to the highest bidder!

Low margin != Unprofitable

HP-fail is due to lack of differentiation. Apple does well because it takes the boutique experience to the extreme. HP is trying to out do Apple AND do it at a lower cost by maintaining low quality and support (e.g. A $300 PC). You can't compete with Apple using cheaper products and less marketing dollars. Make a better product and charge more for it. The consumer PC business is cutthroat because all the sharks are
fighting over the shallow end. Voodoo-PC should have fixed that for HP, but got swallowed by middle management drones instead. It's what happens in big companies when people lose their jobs for publicly having a different point of view.

Well in my mind Apotheker did make a whole lot of blunders, ones that HP couldn't afford to make. So it's only logical that he be forced to take responsibility.

If they wanted to phase out webOS, they could of done it over time, not all at once like they did. They could of still had a big sale like they did, but buy dumping this and that etc, makes HP future uncertain, effecting stock. Change should be gradual not all at once.

If they wanted to phase out webOS, they could of done it over time, not all at once like they did. They could of still had a big sale like they did, but buy dumping this and that etc, makes HP future uncertain, effecting stock. Change should be gradual not all at once.

In the line of PC business, if you are not building cheap PC and be one of the market leaders, you won't be able to break into corporate market. Trying to change HP into Apple way of building boutique PCs will be a disaster. Unlike Apple, there are several competitors building similar machines in PC business. Apple get to do what they are doing because they run a monopoly, and has successfully maintain it that way since 80s.

Trying to adopt Apple way in the PC world is not going to help a company, it will only sink them. PC nowadays has become commodity product like a toaster or microwave. Margin is going to be thin and the mean to continue to stay in business is to accurately manage the supply and cost to meet the demand. One way to diversify is to venture into new line of businesses like mp3 player, TV, smart phone etc.

Selling the PC business is a mistake. Even if you want to believe that PCs are low margin (they are) and it's hard to make a profit selling them (not necessarily true when you consider the size of the market), not having a complete solution will hurt HPs other businesses.

It's a fact that IBM's server business lost market share when they sold off their PC line. Some customers like to be able to buy all their stuff from one company, and not have their PCs from one company, and their servers from another.

This isn't just speculation, again, we have the IBM example to follow. And IBM servers are much more distinctive and important than HP servers (some are mainframes, others are POWER based machines which have incredible performance that Itanium does not have). Since they can make money on PCs, and since selling them will hurt their servers to some extent, it's strange for HP to follow this course. Also, all the instability and uncertainty this creates for the company is anything but good. The company looks unsure of where it is going, and no one likes to buy from a company that.

This guy has to go. And whoever replaces him better send a strong, unequivocal message that HP is all about technology and computers. Not just high margin stuff. Anything you need. If not, they're in for a rough ride.

Over the last decade, HP turned into a bottom feeding dumpster brand similar to Acer. Everything they make is trash. Even their printers, which used to be the industry standard, are now terrible.

I wouldn't be sad to see them go at this point.

Well looking at the choices Apotheker made in the last year, it's not really surprising isn't it.

1º Dropping webOS, in which the company spent a great deal of effort and money developing.
2º Selling out the PC division. True that benefits are slim in the hardware market nowadays, but it's still quite profitable and HP is the number one in worldwide sales. It's their main business.

Altough it's true than Apotheker made all those decisions, part of the blame lies in the board, that appointed as CEO someone who wasn't acquainted with the hardware business.

RIP HP

I completely agree, why relinquish a position as one of the top manufactures when they can keep there high marks in home PC and tablets and make a run at the business products as well. I understand advancing in new venues but to completely drop your money maker!? Maybe a change in leadership is needed.

BREAKING NEWS !!!!!

AS OF 5 PM EDT MEG WHITMAN IS NOW OFFICIALLY THE CEO OF HP.

HP is a victim of the "Corporate" decision making process. The irony, those in that position, who cause the problems, also do the firing and hiring. If HP wants to change this is what it needs to do:

1) Saturate the market with its touchpad at below cost pricing, get webOS on phones and work with google to run android apps and the android app market.

2) Innovate. How many times does HP release something (reminds me of microsoft) that is 3 years behind the market. So think of something new, STOP COPYING.

3) Don't abandon investments. The best way to burn through money is to never give an investment a chance. Android took YEARS to mature, but now dominates.

4) STOP WITH THE BLOAT. Your business is run like your desktops, full of crap that does nothing but slow you down, make it inefficient, and anger the soul of what you are doing.

5) Be fearless. Nobody makes money by mimicking, they make money by taking risks. HP, do something great without concern of what people might think.

Unfortunately they are a band of mental midgets, and will continue to destroy their company and scratch their heads at whats going on...

I'd love to know what the founders family members have to say about the whole mess at HP. It must be gut wrenching to watch something built with determination, innovation, and sweat, into a successful enterprise only to be destroyed by people who only care about only about themselves, not about the organization they work for.

The founders are just in name... CommodoreUSA is nothing like Commodore from the 80s.

Meg is a nut thou.... HP's last CEO has got to be the shorted lasting CEO in their history, he was a problem before they hired him. The board is the problem.

HP.... die.