August 18, 2006

thoughts in passing

Nice to see my employer having continued good results, especially in light of the string of bad news elsewhere.

Frankly, it's also nice to see Carly Fiorina getting some recognition for her role in transforming HP and setting it on a more aggressive and forward-looking strategy.

"Carly did a lot of the shaking up, which was necessary to get the hidebound organization liquefied again -- and that left the field open for Mark Hurd to reorganize. The ironic postscript here is that Carly deserves far more credit than she got," Kay said. "The idea that the organization needed to be shaken up and be less technology-centric and more customer-centric turned out to be spot on."

Carly was an ambitious, energizing leader and a relentless competitor who knew what she wanted and wasn't afraid to go for it. Unfortunately, she also ended up radically polarizing HP and its shareholders -- anyone that had a neutral opinion of her clearly wasn't paying attention. If there's one phrase that sums up her tenure at HP, it has to be "be careful what you wish for".

And say what you will, but dopey stuff like this would never have happened on Carly's watch.

[As always, things I post here are my personal views and not those of my employer]

Posted by Gene at August 18, 2006 8:38 AM | TrackBack