Hewlett-Packard Company (Public, NYSE:HPQ) has made a barrage of terrible decisions in the last year. The Wall Street Journal did a great job summarizing it in one article. I’ll summarize it by bullet points.
- Fire Mark Hurd, the company CEO that was doing a great job over a sexual harassment claim that may or may not have merit. Then fire another four board members after.
- Hire a CEO that has no business running a PC hardware company from German competitor SAP named Leo Apotheker.
- Receive criticism from a governance advisory company that alleges Leo Apotheker filled board positions with his friends.
- Acquire companies and participate in stock buy-backs. Then increase company expenses by the billions of dollars.
- Get on the bad side of software partners by threatening to put the webOS operating system on their machines.
- Announce that you will compete with Apple’s iPad with a $499 device and then drop it to $99, causing a major loss in profits.
- Raise financial estimates twice and miss them both times.
- Announce plans to possibly sell off the PC business, which is “like McDonald’s getting out of the hamburger business” said Robert W. Baird & Co. analyst Jayson Noland.
[WSJ]