“Let’s say you were given a year to kill Hewlett-Packard. Here’s how you do it:

Al Lewis looks back at all the missteps that have led have added up to a disastrous year for Hewlett-Packard.

Fire well-performing CEO Mark Hurd over expense-report irregularities and a juicy sexual-harassment claim that you admit has no merit. Fire four board members, as publicly as possible. Foment a mass exodus of key executives who actually know how to run the giant computer company.

Hire new a CEO from German competitor, SAP, which sells business software, not consumer products. Tell the new CEO, Leo Apotheker, that Mr. Hurd “left H-P in great shape.”

Draw public criticism from a major corporate-governance advisory firm, alleging Mr. Apotheker filled board openings with cronies.
Tech Europe

Autonomy CEO Says H-P Deal Marks Fundamental Shift in IT

Pursue pricey mergers and stock buybacks. Allow expenses to run out of control. Try to blow through billions of dollars in cash reserves before the next global economic slowdown.

Provoke partners Microsoft and Oracle by threatening to put H-P’s own operating software on PCs. Then decide not to. Remember that promising webOS software H-P bought in a $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm last year? Sideline it.

Bristle when Oracle’s Larry Ellison tells the New York Times: “The H-P board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs.” And file lawsuits when Mr. Ellison hires Mr. Hurd.

Boast that you’re going to attack Apple’s iPad with your $499 TouchPad. Then dump your TouchPad in a $99 fire sale and announce you’re just not going to offer it anymore.

Telegraph to the world that you are just too dumb to make smartphones.

Raise your financial estimates, twice. Then miss them, twice.

Make sure Mr. Apotheker’s memo gets leaked to the media — the one that says “watch every penny and minimize all hiring.”

Announce plans to buy British business software company Autonomy for $10 billion, because it makes enterprise software just like SAP, which is what Mr. Apotheker knows best.

Announce plans to maybe sell the PC business. Or maybe spin off PCs as a stand-alone company. Uncertainty will damage the price.

Never mind the years of effort H-P spent — including a controversial merger with Compaq — becoming the world’s largest PC maker. Never mind that the PC business feeds H-P’s more profitable businesses. Dumping it is a beautiful absurdity that one analyst, Jayson Noland of Robert W. Baird & Co., described as “like McDonald’s getting out of the hamburger business.”

Watch Moody’s threaten to downgrade H-P’s credit.

Act surprised as H-P’s stock plunges more than 40%.

Go to Wall Street and tell long, confusing stories about how you are transforming H-P from a low-margin to a high-margin business.

From former CEO Carly Fiorina’s spectacular flame-out, and former chairwoman Patricia Dunn’s illegal spying scandal, to Mr. Hurd’s alleged sex scandal that apparently didn’t involve any sex at all, this sort of dysfunction has become “the H-P Way.”

It has been a year since H-P fired Mr. Hurd. Jack Kevorkian couldn’t have devised a better plan for euthanizing a company. But like the good doctor used to say: “Dying is not a crime.”"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904787404576535211589514334.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

And from one of the comments , Losing $207 a Pop, H-P Brings Back Its iPad Rival – By IAN SHERR

“The TouchPad is dead. Long live the TouchPad.

Hewlett-Packard Co. said it will temporarily resume manufacturing of its ill-fated tablet computer just 11 days after killing its iPad rival as part of a sweeping corporate overhaul.

The H-P TouchPad is dead; long live the TouchPad. Due to unexpected, almost cult-like demand for cheap TouchPads after H-P decided to kill its iPad rival, the company has decided to revive the tablet for a limited time. Ian Sherr and Ina Fried discuss on digits.

The resurrection of the TouchPad follows a spike in demand after H-P, desperate to clear out unsold inventory that had piled up at retailers, slashed the price of the low-end model from $399 to $99.

The decision to discontinue the TouchPad came less than two months after the tablet first went on sale in July, but made little traction against Apple Inc.’s iPad despite an earlier 20% price drop. H-P executives said sales were too weak to justify continued investment.

H-P didn’t say what it would charge for the new batch of TouchPads, but cautioned potential buyers there might not be enough to go around.

“We don’t know exactly when these units will be available or how many we’ll get,” H-P spokesman Mark Budgell wrote on a company blog. “We can’t promise we’ll have enough for everyone.” The company said it is pleased by the response it has gotten so far.
[HPTOUCHPAD]

On Aug. 20, H-P inadvertently created a TouchPad boom when it dropped the price of the device. The move generated an Internet phenomenon—with Twitter users sharing tips on websites were it was still in stock—and long lines at retailers, including Best Buy Co., as consumers jostled to pick up a $99 TouchPad.

The decision to manufacture a second run, however, left analysts scratching their heads. The introductory model of the TouchPad costs $306 to manufacture, according to an estimate from research firm IHS iSuppli, suggesting a loss of roughly two-thirds if it is sold for $99.

Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu said the temporary return of the TouchPad was likely a poorly thought-through decision.

“They did a lot of these moves in haste,” Mr. Wu said. He said the move will likely create confusion among customers and application developers, which H-P is still trying to woo.

H-P’s temporary reversal comes in the midst of a strategic overhaul that will focus the company on software and services. As part of the change, H-P decided to stop making the TouchPad and other hardware running its webOS software. It is also looking to spin off its computer business, the world’s biggest.

The company hasn’t said what it will do with the group that manages the webOS software, which was acquired with smartphone maker Palm Inc. for $1.2 billion in 2010. The company has said it was investigating ways to continue using webOS.”

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