Mark Hurd, CEO of the largest computer company in the world, had to resign last week amid falsified expense reports due to a businesswoman’s claim of sexual harassment. The good news for Mr. Hurd is a severance package of $12.2 Million plus stock benefits. The bad news for HP is that the company lost $7.9 Billion in stock market value the first day of business following his departure. Overall- HP doesn’t need this now.
The HP board says it has put together an executive search committee, and is considering candidates from both inside and outside the company. The consensus emerging in the industry in the aftermath of the news is that there shouldn't be any immediate negative effects--at least operationally. But don’t underestimate the impact this could have, particularly in three key areas:
The first one is in laptops. Although HP still ships the most computers in the world every quarter, the company has to continue to keep an eye on the surging Acer, and others like Samsung and Asus that are making plays for HP's territory of laptops. You can’t discount Moore’s law[1] and the speed of new entrants coming into the market without overhead like HP and being more agile- that’s how Acer did it.
