HP Needs To Grow Up, Already

Anger and frustration are the two emotions pulsing through my veins as I write this.  HP, once the symbol of innovation, is being dismantled by its high-pedigreed board and the CEO of the hour (I truly hope his tenure will be measured in hours, not years).  I vividly remember the early 2000s, when Carly Fiorina, then CEO of HP, engineered the HP merger with Compaq.  She argued that the merger was a must for HP’s future to be bright.  Walter Hewlett, the son of one of the founders, was publicly opposed to it, and I remember the drama of the proxy fight, the TV interviews and arguments from both sides, and the finale – Walter Hewlett lost and the merger went through.  But it was not the finale, because nine years and two CEOs later HP has announced that the PC business, the one it so desperately wanted just a decade ago, is too hard a business and that it will look for ways to get rid of it.  Almost in the same breath HP announced that it will kill WebOS devices, a business it acquired in April 2010 for $1 billion; and management, possibly missing the irony in those two announcements, went ahead and announced another acquisition, which this time will for sure transform the company.