Nickname: steve

Review: Commerce Secretary- That is scary but a natural progression for this inept CEO like most politicians. Her and Bush are a match made in heaven, both idiots.

Date reviewed: Oct 31, 2006 3:40 AM

Nickname: sxs537

Review: I think people from HP are just being bitter. I work at another Silicon Valley compnay which also likes to talk a lot about its culture. The fact of the matter is that culture/mindset needs reinventing when the times change. HP would have been blown away by Dell if not for the Compaq merger. People altogether dismiss the period of 1999-2005 as a failure and think that Mark Hurd has created miracles in the last year. That is naivete at its best. Agreed that Carly was weak operationally and would have been best to hire a COO, but Mark Hurd is also weak ethically (with all the mess that HP is in now). Carly fired 15,000 people. Well so did the current boss. So guys, just remember decisions in big companies take time to bear fruit. Don't dismiss Carly's contributions based on your petty understanding of HP or its business.

Date reviewed: Oct 20, 2006 7:45 AM

Nickname: kc

Review: I agree with blarman, Carly's big mistake was that she never understood the HP Way. It is not "stuck in the past" and would work very well at any company today. Bottom line from Bill and Dave was, `We need to make money, and to make money we need to take care of our people.' This is the essense of the HP Way and helped to make HP the great company that it was. If Carly had tapped into that, the employees would have helped her to acheive her vision for the company. But instead she managed to destroy HP's greatest asset and thus the company.

Date reviewed: Oct 17, 2006 2:25 AM

Nickname: gumbo

Review: I was an HP and Compaq shareholder when the merger fight occured and I thought why not merge? Dell was already No 1 and Dell would have blown Compaq and HP away in a couple years had they not merged. The merger of HP and Compaq was not intended to help it grow but to survive ,or to buy time so to speak. I knew that Compaq or HP alone stood no chance of surviving against Dell. Carly might be the right person to get HP and Compaq together and get heads rolling down the slope.

Date reviewed: Oct 16, 2006 8:37 AM

Nickname: steve

Review: Carly was the premier stroke with no ability to execute. What summarized her ineptness is simply the merger with Compaq. I was with a major supplier to Compaq at that time and they were basically bankrupt when HP bought the loser. She destroyed one of the great technology companies in the world and got paid 20 million to do it, only in America. I hope to God she will never run a company again and just write books on how the debacle was everyone elses fault and not her's, what a joke.

Date reviewed: Oct 16, 2006 3:29 AM

Nickname: JJ

Review: She seemed more interested in creating history rather than results. Her mistake was not to hire a COO. I think she liked the consolidated power to herself and I feel the CPQ merger was a mistake. Instead she should have pursued the PWC buyout more seriously. Another example of her interested in making headlines, the Apple iPod deal in which HP would resell iPods.

Date reviewed: Oct 15, 2006 1:36 AM

Nickname: Tom

Review: Very good article. It's nice to see that the revisionists are not he only ones writing history. Lew increased HP's stock price from $7 to $40 (it went much higher, but settled around there) in seven years. He nurtured the HP way. His mistake? He did not make HP into Cisco. They had all the right competencies and should have owned that market. This was a big miss. But even without that, 600% stock appreciation is not too bad. As you note, Carly was desperate. She tried to do the consulting deal and it fell apart. She did Verifone and then sold it back. Remember "eServices"? Compaq was a huge swing for the fence. She destroyed a great company culture--on purpose. And did nada for the shareholders. So gee, who really did benefit from her stay in Silly Valley? Oh yeah, Carly.

Date reviewed: Oct 14, 2006 8:17 PM

Nickname: Tony

Review: "We are where we are...," staring at the wreckage that was a great company founded by men who understood that trust in people, contribution through technology, customer satisfaction, tough business pronciples, and high ethical standards can be combined to create a sustainable, profitable business. Those who destroyed this, those who couldn't get it, can write all of the books they want. History will not be kind to them.

Date reviewed: Oct 14, 2006 4:27 PM

Nickname: rog

Review: The test of corporate leadership is about having the skills to do right by investors, partners, employees, and customers. Carly failed in all areas. The question in my mind is: What was everyone thinking when Carly was chosen to head up HP, and why did it take so long to remove her? Was it "money in their pocket," more personal power, a vendetta against HP and the founding family? Looking across the American business and political landscape, it would appear that deception and illusion are the offerings, instead of ethics, integrity, innovation, and performance. Sad, very sad.

Date reviewed: Oct 14, 2006 12:25 PM

Nickname: DSL

Review: Good article about the important details Carly left out of her book. I was at HP when this all happened and Peter has done a good job in detailing the facts left out of the book. Directors at HP felt Carly was all "pie in the sky" and had no ability to execute on the vision.

Date reviewed: Oct 14, 2006 1:26 AM