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Fiorina: One foot out the door?

Unhappy with HP's uneven performance on Wall St., the company's board of directors is apparently reconsidering the scope of CEO Carly Fiorina's management duties.
Written by David Berlind, Inactive
Unhappy with HP's uneven performance on Wall St., the company's board of directors is apparently reconsidering the scope of CEO Carly Fiorina's management duties. Though her job doesn't appear to be on the line, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the board has discussed giving three senior executives more authority and autonomy over key HP operating units.
Earlier this month, in a podcast interview (download the MP3), I asked THINKStrategies principal Jeff Kaplan the following questions (timecodes provided so you can fast forward).
ZDNet @ 19:01: Last year, HP had a real serious misstep, if you ask me, in its utility computing strategy. Will it survive that misstep this year or will there be major restructuring there?
Kaplan @ 19:12: Well, I think HP has some significant challenges that it's facing. Not only will it be forced to recast its adaptive computing solutions to make them more attractive to the market, but it's trying to do so at the same time that it's promoting a whole new initiative in the consumer marketplace. Those two markets are heading in two different directions and the convergence that many would like to see in other segments of our industry aren't necessarily going to create the same kind of synergies when you put together an on-demand business solution with a consumer-oriented set of products that they're trying to pursue. So, I think they're facing some significant challenges in trying to hold those two initiatives together.
ZDNet @ 20:05: If you're Carly Fiorina who is the CEO of HP, should you be losing sleep over your job right now?
Kaplan @ 20:10: I would guess that she's having some very serious thoughts late at night about how she balances the consumer demands with changing corporate requirements and in fact be forced to make a decision about whether she's going to have to cast off some of the business units within HP satisfy those dual requirements.
So, Kaplan was pretty much dead on. But, apparently, judging by its actions, HP's board of directors isn't waiting for Fiorina take action.


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