“When Ray Lane took over as chairman of Hewlett-Packard Co a year ago, he was looking forward to working with longtime associate Leo Apotheker, who had just been appointed CEO to repair the damage done by the messy departure of Mark Hurd,” Poornima Gupta and Sarah McBride report for Reuters. “Little did he know that he would soon be presiding over another ugly CEO transition and drawing withering criticism for what investors and analysts viewed as incompetence on the part of the HP board.”
“Now, as executive chairman, the respected Silicon Valley veteran and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers venture capitalist has his reputation on the line as he tries to get the iconic computer maker back on track,” Gupta and McBride report. “When it became clear that the CEO had lost his credibility, Lane and the board fired Apotheker in September, letting go a man he has known for 20 years. At the same time, HP added ‘executive’ to Lane’s chairman title and, without a formal search, appointed board member and former eBay Inc chief Meg Whitman as CEO, despite her lack of experience in enterprise computing.”
Gupta and McBride report, “Conversations with current and former colleagues of Lane paint a picture of a plain-speaking and decisive executive who is not afraid to get his hands dirty.”
Read more in the full article and see a photo of Lane getting his HP hands really “dirty” using his Apple MacBook Air here.
[Attribution: Electronista. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Jax44” for the heads up.]
He should take his macbook to work!
Tell the computer division “here is the bar. Give me a good reason to use an HP over this!”
Rub how great is right in their faces…
Let it be known that until they produce something great enough to replace that macbook that they are failing.
Its time to put the bllod back in the sport
No, No No! He should take a dell laptop (any dell laptop) and say until you can do one of these you are failing.
the ‘dude’s’ suggestion sounds like something out of s. j.’s always in your face to do better game plan.
next step is to hold up any hp “device’ and ask…”tell me again, what is this supposed to do?”
When His Steveness returned to Apple as iCEO he traveled with a ThinkPad running NeXT. He anticipated your thinking.
They won’t be able to do it. Even if the hardware is stylish, fast, and lightweight, the OS will be Windows. Therefore the product could never be great enough to replace that macbook.
Already, running Windows on a MacBook Air is like serving decaying meat on Dresden china.
I think the original plan of building webOS up as their own OS was the right idea.
Without their own OS you are right, they are stuck with windows and that will turn any piece of sexy hardware they might produce into a pimple faced fat chick with a dick .
Excellent point. It’s the software that makes a Mac, not the hardware.
I know. Yet when I look at PC’s in Best Buy, I am amazed at the crap that is being sold and bought. You wanna see Super-duper, glossy, cheap-looking crap- check out some PC laptops. Of course they’re mostly cheaper than Macs- they’re garbage, which is cheaper than… food!
“It’s the software that makes a Mac, not the hardware.”
Fundamentally wrong. It is the combination of hardware and software that makes a Mac.
Hardware is important. Here is my own observation: Even Windows runs better on a Mac than on a Dell.
HP’s chain to MS could be severed with the right licensing contract. It would be quite a coup if HP offered users the option of OS on their multicore workstations: Windows, Linux, and/or Mac with virtualization options.
… it may be that your “even if” scenario may be the hardest nut to crack. HP’s hardware reputation sucks. it will take money and time to both implement solid hardware, get it in people’s hands, and develop the reputation. not an easy task when most corporate leaders and their typical shareholders are only interested in short-term gains, not long-term stable company health.
besides, the decision to bring in Meg Whitman speaks volumes. HP still thinks it wants to be another subscription-based “solutions provider”, not an engineering-led products company. Engineering is hard work. Too hard for most of today’s business leaders.
Hey Jane, what’s up?
Look I just think Ray Lane thinks he’s Steve Jobs, Chairman of Apple Computers. Just watch this clip.
OK, I get it … I think …
If I have to think about something more than 1.5 seconds, it’s probably not funny …
Maybe it’s just that time of the month. Or maybe it wasn’t funny.
Hey, hope you’re feeling chipper. Don’t let that time of the month get you down!
Ok here’s what the film clip does. It’s from Crazy Stupid Love where Ryan Gosling’s character is delivering the slap down to Steve Carrel’s character for trying to dress like Steve Jobs. So he tosses the New Balance sneakers away because quite clearly he’s not Steve Jobs.
In Ray Lane’s case carrying a MBA around isn’t going to turn him into Steve Jobs and enable him to turn HP around. Tenuous, I know, but there is it.
Hehe….
Dead PC walking
+1
There’s more than one hiker on the RIM trail to oblivion.
Reminds of when Motorola was using PCs Intel cpus instead of using Macs with Motorola CPUs.
Which just reminds me how long Moto has been clueless.
Hey they were ahead of apple on that one! Lol
Suggestion for picture caption: ‘Introducing HP Envy”
It doesn’t surprise me that the executive chairman of HP is using a Macbook Air. I’d be willing to bet Macs are the favorite computers of numerous Wintel company execs and employees. That he would be seen in a PR photo using it is another matter entirely.