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HP reportedly weighs ouster of CEO Leo Apotheker
SAN MATEO, Calif. -- Another major tech CEO might soon be shown the door.
Hewlett-Packard's board is weighing the idea of jettisoning new CEO Leo Apotheker and replacing him with former eBay boss Meg Whitman, according to Bloomberg News and other published reports.
In one scenario, Whitman, who is on HP's board, would serve on an interim basis, according to Bloomberg, citing sources close to the matter who asked not to be named because the plans aren't public.
USA TODAY could not independently confirm the reports.
Rumors of Apotheker's ouster sent HP shares soaring nearly 7%, to close at $23.98, on Wednesday. The company's stock has plunged nearly in half during his watch. An HP spokeswoman declined comment.
Should HP part ways with Apotheker, 58, it would mark his second abbreviated CEO tenure. He lasted 10 months at SAP before resigning in February 2010 after an attempted price increase rankled consumers.
Since he was hired in November at HP, Apotheker has sliced the company's sales forecasts and presided over a strategic overhaul that had some shareholders doubting his credibility. The deal-breaker might have come last month when HP said it acquired Autonomy, a maker of search software, for $10.3 billion and would consider a spinoff or sale of its personal computer division.
"Our conversations with investors continue to point to near universal opposition of the Autonomy acquisition, due to its high price," Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi wrote in a Sept. 13 note.
Apotheker, who has kept a low profile as HP CEO, also scotched a plan announced in April to put the WebOS mobile operating system on computers. That operating system was at the core of HP's TouchPad tablet, which made its debut in February — only to be ignominiously dumped months later.
Whitman, who unsuccessfully ran for California governor in 2010, is one of Silicon Valley's most well-known executives despite a mixed legacy at eBay. As CEO for a decade, she took the company public and helped reshape online commerce for small businesses. But she couldn't stop a slowdown in revenue growth and did not keep the company up on advances in technology, particularly mobile.
"What a mess. This board changes strategies more often than Liz Taylor change(d) husbands," says Jonathan Yarmis, an independent technology analyst.
Apotheker succeeded Mark Hurd, who was ousted after a sexual-harassment investigation in 2010. Hurd succeeded Carly Fiorina, who was forced out following a run-in with the HP board in 2005.
Apotheker wants to transform HP into a provider of more profitable software and services for businesses, as IBM and others have.
"This is a company that went from vision (Carly) to execution (Hurd) to … what?" Yarmis says.
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