Carly Fiorina and Her Record at HP

Presidential candidate Carly Fiorina has been taking a lot of heat and defending her record while at Hewlett-Packard ten years ago. Below are a couple of charts summarizing HP’s stock performance during those years. You can draw your own conclusions. Suffice it to say that many employees were glad that Carly Fiorina  was removed from Hewlett-Packard. Unfortunately, by the time she was gone, the “HP Way” had all but disappeared.

And in another chart:

 The sources and crisper images are below. You can also click on the images to expand them.  The analyses point out that the economy was not great during those years. Neither article gives Fiorina  an "A" for her performance, though. 

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/carly-fiorina-failed-at-h-p-but-so-has-everyone-else-2015-09-18?siteid=yhoof2

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-18/carly-fiorina-s-hewlett-packard-record-in-one-chart?cmpid=yhoo

HP Ships Virus-Infected Flash Card with ProCurve Switch - PC Market Share Data

Hewlett Packard shipped ProCurve switches with a virus-infected compact flash card that could compromise a personal computer, according to articles published last week. Hewlett-Packard released a statement that said it had "corrected potential security vulnerability."

This is kind of a “whoops” for a company the size of Hewlett-Packard that has a major investment in security. Among their products are network security appliances (the TippingPoint acquisition falls under this group), and firewalls (in the Niche portion of Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Network Firewalls)> they also offer Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) and Threat Management Systems (TMS) (Tipping Point solutions, as well). This isn’t a Meg Whitman problem. It probably provided a Maalox moment for a few more senior people in the security division.

http://www.crn.com/news/security/232900249/hp-ships-virus-infected-flash-card-with-procurve-switch.htm?cid=nl_crnup

On a more positive note, Gartner has reported that Hewlett Packard was the top PC vendor, with 15.31 million units shipped during Q1 2012. Shipments improved 3.5% year over year to 17.2%. Lenovo was second with a 13.1% market share, up 28.0% year over year. This could be a sign that HP has made the right decision by choosing not to shed the personal computer division.