Will Walter Hewlett, the billionaire musician, become chairman of Hewlett
Packard on March 19 or soon thereafter? Why not? HP will be a lot better off in
the short term under Hewlett than it has been under Fiorina since the day she
was appointed to "clean house."
With each passing day the clouds are darkening over the prospects of the
Compaq merger. Should it be voted down by shareholders on March 19, Fiorina will
either resign or be fired. In a gesture of good taste, the rest of the board,
except Hewlett, should follow the CEO to save face.
There are plenty of good businessmen to take their place. And with Hewlett
having won the hearts of HP's workforce, the company will likely become more
productive and energized with the prospect of working under a new management
team whose intent is something other than sacrificing thousands of jobs in order
to push up quarterly earnings a few pennies.
In the long term, Hewlett is not the right person to be chairman for HP, of
course. He'll be the first to admit that. But for the remainder of 2002, or
however long it will take to find a new CEO and seven new board members, Hewlett
has my vote.
About the only persuasive argument Fiorina has put forward to vote for the
deal is the possibility of chaos if the deal it turned down and HP is left
without leadership.
HP shareholders don't have to worry about the company falling apart without
Fiorina. The $60 billion firm is like an oil tanker, which takes a lot to turn
it around or slow down. The company has already managed a nice comeback while
Fiorina has been busy discrediting the founding families and selling the Compaq
deal to Wall Street. A job she appears to be doing with about the same degree of
failure as everything she's initiated during her three-year reign.
That momentum will likely accelerate regards of whether there is a temporary
vacancy at the helm.