Mark Hurd’s departure from HP caused quite a fervor. After all, what’s juicier than a sex scandal and defecting to the competition? But it gets better: IBM wants to get in on the fun. This isn’t TMZ, but it’s pretty rich nonetheless. From a story published in the Wall Street Journal on September 15, 2010:
In a rare public broadside, IBM Chief Executive Samuel J. Palmisano said he doesn’t worry about companies such as H-P that have slashed their investments in core technologies and need to make expensive acquisitions to keep up. “H-P used to be a very inventive company,” Mr. Palmisano said in an interview at a Wall Street Journal event on Tuesday.
Palmisano went on to suggest that Mark Hurd’s focus on cost-cutting has undercut HP’s ability to innovate. While people at HP might disagree, Palmisano believes there’s a serious kink in HP’s innovation supply chain. On the other hand, Palmisano praised the efforts of Oracle CEO’s Larry Ellison to invest in the development of new technologies.