HP director says CEO has full support of board
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A Hewlett-Packard Co.   director said on Wednesday Chief Executive Mark Hurd has the  full support of the board and that there have been no  discussions whether Hurd might resign amid the controversy over  the company's investigation into boardroom leaks.
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Mumbai, Nov. 26: Mukesh Ambani apparently commands the full support of the board on all recent decisions, including the controversial one that elevated him to the âfinal authorityâ in the group.
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By Damon Darlin  Moving to quell its boardroom upheaval, Hewlett-Packard said Tuesday that its chairwoman, Patricia Dunn, would step down in January and would be succeeded by Mark Hurd, the chief executive. The announcement was made before the U.S.
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Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd announced Friday that Chairman Patricia Dunn has resigned from HP's board because of the fallout from the company's probe of leaks to the media. But Hurd also confirmed that he approved a misinformation campaign as part of the probe.
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Hewlett-Packard's embattled chairman, Patricia Dunn, accepts a "hall of fame" leadership award at a gala dinner in San Francisco.
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(InfoWorld) - Patricia Dunn, Hewlett-Packard's embattled chairman, will be relieved of those duties after the board's Jan. 18, 2007, meeting, but will continue as a director. The announcement came Tuesday morning, followingÂ meetings of the boardÂ over the weekend and Monday. Mark Hurd, HP's chief executive officer and president will also take on the chairman's job. Richard Hackborn, who has been on the board since 1992, has been chosen as the lead independent director as of January. Dunn has been under intense pressure to step down as chairman after it came to light last week that the board of directorsÂ carried out an investigationÂ to determine who among the board leaked confidential information to journalists. The board admitted in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that the internal probe involved "pretexting," where employees of an investigative firm hired by the company pretended to be reporters to gain access to their telephone records. Federal authorities, including the U.S. Department of Justice and a congressional committee,Â are questioning the board's conductÂ in the probe and the California attorney general has said thatÂ charges are likely to be filed. "The recent events that have taken place follow an important investigation that was required after the board sought to resolve the persistent disclosure of confidential information from within its ranks. These leaks had the potential to affect not only the stock price of HP but also that of other publicly traded companies," Dunn said in a written statement released by HP. "Unfortunately, the investigation, which was conducted by third parties, included certainÂ inappropriate techniques. These went beyond what we understood them to be, and I apologize that they were employed." Dunn pledged to take action to make sure that such "inappropriate investigative techniques" do not happen again. "They have no place in HP," she said in the statement.
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SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Hewlett-Packard Co.'s board considered on three occasions whether to break up the company, but each time directors unanimously concluded it would be best to keep HP together, chief executive and chairman Carly Fiorina said yesterday.
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By Damon Darlin  Hewlett-Packard's board has ended a crucial advisory relationship with Larry Sonsini, the powerful Silicon Valley lawyer, according to a person with close connections to the board.
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(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd's assessment of his company's storage sales organization was simple and blunt: "We just don't cover enough accounts," said Hurd on a conference call with analysts Tuesday discussing HP's latest quarterly earnings. Sales of storage products grew only 3 percent during the quarter ended Jan. 31, compared to a year ago, whileÂ HP's overall revenue grewÂ 11 percent, and revenue in the Technology Solutions Group, of which storage is a part, grew 40 percent. "We need to drive stronger top line results in the business," Hurd said. To do that HP will invest in improving sales coverage and hiring more storage sales specialists, he said, as well as better aligning the company with its value added resellers, independent companies that sell HP storage. In other words, HP has to do a better job of reaching out to customers like Gary McCready. McCready is a storage manager in the IT department of a major New York area financial institution, which he did not want identified, and a member of Encompass, an HP user group. Although he frequently receives invitations to HP technical forums or other events surrounding operating systems or servers, he sees very few invitations to HP storage events. "I'm not sure HP is really putting the emphasis on selling storage the same way it puts the emphasis on other areas. I think they figure that storage simply sells itself," McCready said. He also lamented that HP recently merged its StorageWorks convention into the HP Technology Forum, a show devoted to all HP systems. In fact, storage doesn't sell itself, says Rob Enderle, principal analyst with The Enderle Group, a market research firm. The enterprise storage buyer is a very conservative buyer who makes a decision only after careful consideration, which makes for long sales cycles, Enderle said. "If you don't have enough specialists you are not going to get the business." More to the point, a storage specialist needs to know about the specific storage issues facing different industries, said Andrew Reichman, a storage industry analyst at Forrester Research. Storage needs differ for financial institutions versus health care companies, for example, on what regulations companies have to obey, and the types of software they use, Reichman said. "It's hard for storage vendors in general, not just HP," he said, but added that some storage vendors are dealing with the challenge. EMC and Hitachi Data Systems, both solely storage vendors, are organized around sales account managers who are supported by sales specialists who can address specific needs in specific industries, Reichman said. But while Hurd thinks HP's storage sales operation needs attention, it is competitive. HP ranked second to EMC in storage sales worldwide market share in the third quarter of 2006, according to IDC's latest figures. HP's $760 million in revenue gave it a 17.6 percent share, while EMC's $927 million gave it a 21.4 percent share. But HP actually lost market share to EMC that quarter as its sales grew by only 1.8 percent, compared to the year ago quarter, while EMC's grew 18 percent. HP has a chance to improve its sales if it takes some simple advice from customers like McCready: Call me.
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Hewlett-Packard Co. CEO Mark Hurd discussed the computer and printer maker's growth prospects during a tech conference Monday but didn't mention the ongoing scandal involving his company's attempts to uncover the source of boardroom leaks to the media.
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Seat emptied by spying scandal filled The chairman and chief executive of Wachovia â the fourth largest retail bank in the US â is joining the board of HP.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-Packard may be on track to be a $100 billion company this year, but CEO Mark Hurd said there's a total $1.1 trillion IT market for it to pursue. Hurd, in a keynote address Monday at the HP Technology Forum in Las Vegas, told an audience of HP customers, partners, and employees that the company needs to continue to reduce costs so it can invest in innovation more. In an emotional moment in his 30-minute address, he expressed confidence his 167,000 employees are up to the challenge. "I know of no CEO who is prouder of their company as I am about HP," Hurd said, in an arena inside the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino convention center. HP's capital spending has remained relatively flat in recent years while its budget for IT maintenance and continuing operations has continued to rise. Hurd pledged that HP would increase its capital spending by a factor of four over what it is today, with a goal of getting HP to a point where maintenance and operations are just 30 percent of the IT budget and innovation on new technology is 70 percent. HP is in the midst of a capital project to reduce the number of data centers it operates, from 85 worldwide to just six, to improve the efficiency of its own operations. Hurd, who is also chairman and president of the technology company, said it also has a goal of reducing the amount of energy used for power and cooling by 50 percent, which he said would save enough energy to power the city of Palo Alto, California, HP's headquarters city, for a year. "Green is not just about being environmentally friendly, it's [about] a great outcome. It's also about the efficiency we gain and the money we save at the same time," Hurd said. While remaining focused on costs, HP is also hiring. Hurd said the company hired approximately 1,000 new sales people over the last 12 months, two-thirds of them in the Technology Solutions Group, which sells to businesses and large enterprises. Hurd said that all the innovation HP designs into its personal computers, servers and other products won't make a difference if the products are not well distributed. He said the company needs to hire more and better sales people and handle more accounts to better serve their customers. The Technology Forum is co-hosted by HP user groups, including Encompass. The forums help HP customers, particularly small-to-medium sized businesses get the company to listen to them, said Nina Buik, president of Encompass. "HP is going to listen to FedEx, Motorola or General Dynamics," Buik said. "But if you take that layer of SMBs who, collectively, probably do the largest spending for HP products, this is where their voice is heard."ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!
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By Pete Carey, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  Sep. 22--Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Mark Hurd said today the  company's chairwoman, Patricia Dunn, has resigned from the board of directors  effective immediately.
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(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-PackardÂ Chief Executive Officer and President Mark Hurd Friday confirmed that he approved a probe of HP employees, board members and journalists in an effort to find out who on the HP board was leaking confidential information outside of the company. However, Hurd said he did not approve the placement of tracing technology in an e-mail to a journalist, and apologized for this and any other "inappropriate" tactics -- such as physical surveillance and obtaining phone records under false pretenses, known as "pretexting" -- that HP undertook in its investigation to find the source of information leaks. "I extend my sincere apology to those journalists who were investigated and to everyone who was impacted," Hurd said. "The inappropriate techniques that were applied do not reflect the value of HP. ... These are not indicative of how we conduct business at HP." Hurd also said he accepted the resignation of Patricia Dunn from her position as chairman of the HP board and a director, effective immediately, and thanked her for her eight years of service on HP's board. Previously, Dunn was to stay on as a director of the board, but would step down as chairman in January. Hurd now takes on the role of chairman of HP's board. HP also appointed Bart M. Schwartz, a former U.S. prosecutor, as board counsel. His role will be to perform an independent review of investigative methods and the company's Standards of Business Conduct processes, and to make future recommendations for implementing best practices. He will report to Hurd and HP Chief Financial Officer Bob Wayman. Hurd said that HP had the "best intentions" when it began the first of two phases of a probe into boardroom leaks, but said it "turned in a direction we could not have anticipated" and he takes full accountability for what transpired. "I take this very seriously and commit to getting to the bottom of this," he said. "Our job is to fix this and get back to the job of running the business." Hurd did not field reporter questions at the press conference, at which HP searched attendees' bags and did not allow video cameras. Hurd plans to appear at an U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing about HP's investigation on Thursday, Sept. 28., and said he did not want questions on Friday to interfere with that testimony. Mike Holston, a partner with law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, also spoke at the press conference on Friday. HP appointed the firm, which reports directly to Hurd, on Sept. 8 to investigate the tactics used by HP and third-party investigators in its probe. Holston said his firm has read more than 1 million pages of documents about two internal HP investigations -- called Kona 1 and Kona 2 -- and is still in the process of putting together the details of what took place. He declined to identify by name the people HP investigated. However, Holston did confirm that HP worked with two third-party organizations -- Security Outsourcing Services and Action Research Group -- to investigate employees, board members and/or former board members and their families, and journalists and their families. That investigation included physical surveillance, obtaining social security numbers of those being investigated to obtain phone records and the placement of e-mail tracing technology in an e-mail to one journalist, he said. Friday's news conference followed a steady stream of news reports over the last two weeks with revelations of actions HP and its outside investigators allegedly took to discover the source of company leaks to the media. Schemes allegedly considered included an attempt to plant spies inside the San Francisco newsrooms of The Wall Street Journal and CNET Networks Inc. posing as clerical workers or janitors, and a sting operation in which a fake anonymous source within HP would e-mail CNET reporter Dawn Kamamoto with a tip and track her e-mails to see if she contacted her other HP sources about the tip. Holston said Friday that while there was evidence that HP considered starting undercover operations in the newsrooms of the Journal and CNET, there is no evidence that such operations ever took place. He also confirmed that HP did try to track one reporterâs e-mail through tracing technology, but did not name the reporter involved and said there was no evidence at this time that the HP investigation team was aware that the tracer was activated.
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Hewlett-Packard Co.  Chief  Executive Mark Hurd told lawmakers on Thursday there were no  excuses for a probe of boardroom leaks that led investigators  to obtain private telephone records deceptively.
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By RACHEL KONRAD  SAN FRANCISCO - Hewlett-Packard Co.'s board will file a statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, notifying investors that the computer maker's board will refuse to nominate one director for re-election because he leaked confidential information to the media.
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The board of Hewlett-Packard Co.  HPQ.N discussed breaking up the No. 2 computer maker three  times in the past, yet each time decided to keep it intact,  Chief Executive Carly Fiorina said on Tuesday, defending her  strategy for the company.