

Cringely’s second column on the firing of Leo Apotheker - ableal
http://www.cringely.com/2011/09/cringelys-second-column-on-the-firing-of-leo-apotheker/

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nextparadigms
Amazing how he was able to make such a specific prediction, not only about the
firing of Leo, but also the hiring of Meg Whitman, if it was actually just a
prediction. But he most likely had some strong inside information.

It seems that the HP board is set on destroying HP with all these political
games and hiring friends as CEO's.

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larrik
Not to mention buying SAP (or as it actually turned out, a SAP-like company).

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cpeterso
Maybe Autonomy could hire Leo?

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mindblink
Impressive prediction. This was in February, way before the bungled Touchpad
and WebOS strategy, followed by announcements that totally diminish the
Hardware division, which remains a large portion of HP's value proposition.
Cringely has made wild predictions that don't pan out, but this is one that
was right on target.

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PotatoEngineer
Well, if you guess enough times...

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OoTheNigerian
These are VERY specific series of guesses. Names being mentioned, scenerios
being played out.

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Jun8
Reading the comments to hist first post totally made my afternoon. People
ridiculing his choice of Whitman as the new CEO? And totally clueless ones
stating that Apotheker was the right person to take HP out of trouble.

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andrewtbham
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. He also predicted before the apple
press conference where they gave away free bumpers for antenna problems that
apple had halted production of iphones.

<http://www.cringely.com/2010/07/missing-in-action/>

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Apocryphon
What's Cringely's reputation? Why would be considered a broken clock?

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Uhhrrr
He at least used to make an annual list and score himself later: 2011:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.cringely.com/tag/2011-predictions/)
2009:
[http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20081216_0055...](http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20081216_005509.html)
2006:
[http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070105_0014...](http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070105_001440.html)

For 2009 he scores himself 4 right and 11 wrong, which is certainly broken
clock territory, but he's usually decent _for a pundit_.

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rmason
In all fairness to Leo Apotheker you can't judge whether he would be
ultimately successful based on a single year at the helm.

Imagine that the Apple board fired Steve Jobs after one year in 1998? After
all he killed the clones as well as disrupting the most single profitable
piece of a financial struggling company -
[http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/09/what_steve_jobs_taught_me_ab...](http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/09/what_steve_jobs_taught_me_abou.html)

Not to mention wanting to open retail stores after CompuAdd and Gateway both
proved that was an unworkable idea.

I personally think the board shouldn't have hired Apotheker in the first place
but you can't give him more than an incomplete on his two turns as a CEO.

