After leaving the markets hanging for a few weeks, HP has finally clarified its future plans in the PC business: it’s in. HP will not undertake the course of action began by former CEO Leo Apotheker to spin off the PC business. This marks the first major change led by new CEO Meg Whitman. Don’t get too excited; webOS is still dead (we checked).
It pays more to be kicked out of HP's circle of trust than it does to be hired and put at the helm. After much ballyhooing in the blogosphere about the severance package departing CEO Leo Apotheker will receive after a short 11-month stint, the real numbers are in, as reported by HP this week in a regulatory filing. The tally? More than $13 million cash and stock.
With the economy in the crapper, a lot of folks are buckling down, tightening their belts and saving money any way possible. Not HP. No, we’re not talking about the company’s $10.3 billion acquisition of Autonomy; we're talking about the cash HP’s shelled out in severance packages to ousted revolving-door CEOs the past few years. One website counted up the dollars and cents and came up with an astonishing figure: those golden parachutes cost HP around $80 million.
Leo Apotheker's relatively short stint as CEO of Hewlett Packard has come to end. Taking his place is Meg Whitman, the former eBay boss, who will now serve as HP's President and CEO, the company's board of directors announced. Ms. Whitman faces the monumental challenge of restoring investor faith in HP, though her appointment alone may prove a step in the right direction.
When HP named Leo Apotheker as the company’s new CEO a scant 11 months ago, hopes were high that the software-focused former SAP honcho would be able to overhaul the company and help rake in tons of dough. Well, they got it half right; since his appointment, Apotheker has sure shaken things up, but not in a good way; the company’s recent sweeping changes didn’t sit well with the public, and partially as a result, HP’s stock has dropped 47 percent on Leo’s watch. Now, his job may be on the line.
Don't let it be said that Hewlett-Packard isn't ultra confident in webOS, the platform it inherited (and chased after) when it acquired Palm. HP head Leo Apotheker made some rather bold predictions about the future of HP, which includes shipping every PC with the ability to run webOS in addition to Microsoft's Windows. This isn't a far off future either, but next year.
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