back to article Apotheker was HP's sole CEO choice

Leo Apotheker, the ex-SAP CEO and the new president and chief executive officer of IT giant Hewlett-Packard who was appointed to those jobs yesterday, gave his first briefing this morning with members of the HP board. If you were expecting a lot of insight into the CEO search, the selection process, and Apotheker's plans for HP …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Only person offered the job? yeah I know that trick

    Steve, would you be interesting in the top HP job? Ah...thanks but no thanks...life is good at IBM

    Ginnie, would you be interested in the top HP job? Thank you very much but I will be the next CEO of IBM, so no thanks

    Tom, would you have interested in the top HP job? No way dude, Apple is too cool, HP is stuffy, boring, and lost its "HP way"

    Charles, would you be interested in the top HP job now that Larry pushed you out for the "Hurd in a punch bowl"? No I promised my wife I would take a low profile job and keep away from situations where woman might accuse me of things or pay for bill boards.

    Leo, you are unemployed and recently fired by SAP, would you be interested in the top job at HP? We will pay you $5M to sign, $5M in salary, $3M to relocated, $6M in stock and you can get a bonus of 2X your salary as long as you cut employees. Sure why not! We would like to offer you the job.

    1. Version 1.0 Silver badge
      Happy

      Rolling on the floor etc etc

      Oh are you ever right! That's *exactly* how it works - I wonder who his "friend" is on the board?

  2. Version 1.0 Silver badge
    Happy

    "traveling the world"

    That's the first thing they do - get out and visit the outposts, talk to the people there and tell them that they are the new broom that will make everything right - if only you'll share honestly what you feel about the company.

    And then they return to the office and shaft everyone who opened their mouths.

    Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, and the free jar of Vaseline with the sand in it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      advice

      Leo: dot those i's and cross the t's in those world travel expense reports!

  3. NooneNowhere
    Thumb Down

    Wow

    3M to relocate .. I mean seriously what are they moving and where are they moving him to? Sounds like they might be shipping an entire castle across the ocean brick by brick. Pretty good gig for an unemployed SAP cast-off .. but I pity the poor bastards working at HP now.

  4. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Flame

    "they can't afford to tick off the new top dog"

    What on Earth ?? They're just analysts, right ? It's not like HP makes them sign NDAs for getting the latest PR announcement, so why can they not tick the bastard off ? Does the quality of their analysis depend on whether or not they get a free lunch with the guy ?

    Seriously, I don't get it. Once upon a time we used to hear that "it's lonely at the top", because once you got there you had no friends and everyone was nipping at you heels, trying to bring you down.

    Nowadays I get the feeling that when you're on top, as long as you don't stumble you're pandered to, lavished with positive attention and covered in rosy comments. Of course, as soon as you have a problem, you get to see that, like in a vampire film, those lovely smiles suddenly turn to wicked, tooth-filled grins and those same people start biting you to pieces, but still.

    What hypocrisy.

  5. Ancient Oracle funkie

    Dear Leo, don't buy SAP ...

    ... just beef up HP's Oracle offering, work closely with Larry & Mark, and totally dominate the application space. That's the way to get your own back on SAP not renewing your contract.

    Even if I say so myself, a brilliant suggestion!

    And in no way connected to the fact that I work for a certain IT giant much in the news latterly, nor to the fact that I work with Oracle applications. Sheer coincidence.

  6. TeeCee Gold badge
    Stop

    Most valuable asset?

    Yeah, right.

    Like this: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1993-03-03/

  7. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    An expertise in software?

    SAP must be the most cumbersome, non-intuitive, user-unfriendliest piece of software on the planet.

    If Leo the Chemist is taking *that* expertise to HP, then I won't be buying any of their future hardware.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like