How did the merger of HP and Compaq reflect on Fiorinas tenure?
It’s very hard to say what would have happened to the two companies individually if the merger hadn’t gone through. But not a lot of synergies were garnered from it, and there has been a lot of criticism. HP hasn’t come out as the competitive force it was hoping to become when the deal was first announced. The synergies that were imagined didn’t really occur. The company had to give up vying for No. 1 [in PCs] and simply wasn’t able to act fast enough or effectively enough to reduce its cost structure to match Dell’s. For Fiorina, it was a very high-profile bet and caused a lot of tension. Basically, the strategic rationale is really in question. But to their benefit, it was a very difficult environment to undertake the merger. Q: Does Fiorina’s departure make sense for HP? A: She was a high-profile executive, and she got the same criticism that Lou Platt, the previous HP CEO, got. This makes us think there are problems structurally within HP that still need to be addressed — rather t
