Board scandal the focus at HP event
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(InfoWorld) - Last year's HP Technology Forum was chased out of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. This year, storm clouds of a different sort hang over the event. As an estimated 6,000 attendees converge on Houston for the annual Hewlett-Packard user conference, the subject on many minds is the one the company is most loathe to discuss: theÂ shakeup of HP's boardÂ and theÂ prospect of criminal chargesÂ related to a spying scandal. The California Attorney General and a Congressional committee are among the institutions probing HP's possibly illegal methods of investigating news leaks from its board. HP has until Tuesday to respond to an invitation from the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee for HP's Chairman Patricia Dunn and General Counsel Ann Baskins to testify at a Sept. 28 hearing in Washington. But at the Technology Forum, a gathering of HP user groups, partners and other vendors, HP is focusing on its business success, which is considerable. With revenue, earnings and stock price all resurgent in the last year, HP CEO Mark Hurd could rightly say, "Pay no attention to that prosecutor behind the curtain," when he delivers a keynote address on Sept. 18. In the quarter ended July 31, HP's earnings-per-share (EPS) topped analysts' estimates at $0.52 on 5 percent revenue growth to $21.9 billion, compared to the year ago quarter. Across many of its business lines, HP, of Palo Alto, California, has gained on rivals, said industry analyst Rob Enderle. HP personal computer sales have grown with its "the computer is personal again" marketing campaign, Enderle noted. IBMÂ sold its personal computer businessÂ to Lenovo Group, in 2005, and Dell has suffered negative publicity from the AugustÂ recall of 4.1 million fire-prone batteriesÂ in Dell laptops. In storage, HP closed the market share gap with EMC in second quarter numbers released Aug. 29 by research firm IDC. With EMC's 20 percent share, based on unit sales, to HP's 19.3 percent, the two are in a "statistical tie" said Brad Nisbet, an analyst with IDC. "HP has been executing well under new management," Nisbet said, referring to Hurd, CEO since March 2005. In servers, HP is a strong second to IBM, according to IDC market share numbers, but has made some errors, said Enderle. It still is using Intel's Itanium processor in its high-end Integrity servers, which rivals aren't embracing. Gartner research shows that 90 percent of the Itanium chips shipped in the first quarter of this year ran on HP servers; neither Dell nor IBM build Itanium computers. Technology Forum organizers get tight-lipped when the conversation shifts to the board scandal. "That's HP's business," said Nina Buik, vice president of Encompass, one of the HP user groups planning the event. "We're not focused on those issues unless it impacts the technology." And as long as the scandal doesn't touch Hurd personally, the customer satisfaction should be unaffected, said Crawford Del Prete, senior vice president of research at IDC. . "I don't think [the scandal] is a drag on the company's success," he said. "I have not found one customer who said 'I'm not going to do business, or I am concerned about doing business, with Hewlett-Packard as a result of this.'" HP Technology forum runs from Sunday to Thursday this week.
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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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(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-Packard board of directors took no action at a special Sunday meeting and will reconvene late Monday to continueÂ discussions about the scandalÂ that has occupied the company over the past week. The board held a teleconference Sunday morning for several hours, according to a brief company statement issued Sunday afternoon, to discuss reports that outside investigators, acting on behalf of the board,Â obtained phone recordsÂ of directors and journalists to trace the source of information leaks regarding board meetings. The investigators' tactic of disguising their true identity in order to gain access to customer records, called "pretexting," may be in violation of the law and the California Attorney General's office is investigating the case. HP gave no reason in its statement for the move to adjourn Sunday's meeting to Monday. HP Board Chairman Patricia Dunn has been criticized for launching the investigation, including calls for her resignation. Dunn said she was "appalled" that the investigators engaged in pretexting but said that she was not told details of how they conducted their probe. While she has said that she won't resign on her own, she would step down if the board requested her to do so. The investigation determined that HP director George Keyworth was the source of a story CNet Networks Inc. story in January about HP's business strategy. When Keyworth was asked to resign from the board in May, he refused. But board member Thomas Perkins, a renowned Silicon Valley venture capitalist, resigned in protest over the way in which the investigation was conducted. Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd, in a letter to company employees released late Friday, urged them to keep focused on their work. "The media coverage and speculation regarding the recent actions of the HP Board ... have nothing to do with the strategy or operations of Hewlett-Packard," he said. Hurd, who emphasized that he was speaking as CEO and not as a board member, added: "There has been a long history of leaking company information with the HP board that clearly needs to be resolved."
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HP was blasted by legislators this week, but corporate customers say the boardroom leak scandal is a minor distraction, and they still back CEO Mark Hurd.
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(InfoWorld) - Like a good friend who has just gotten out of a terrible relationship, Hewlett-Packard seemed to be on the rebound and all the happier for it in recent months. After the departure of controversial CEO Carly Fiorina, the company has as of late shown newfound confidence and focus under new CEO Mark Hurd. But allâs still not well in the higher echelons of HP, as revealed in a filing the company made to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The sudden and unexpected resignation of Silicon Valley venture capitalist Thomas Perkins from HPâs board of directors in May turned into a full-blown scandal last week, spawning law enforcement and SEC investigations and a PR nightmare for HP. At the center of the controversy is a legally and ethically questionable internal investigation of leaks of confidential company information to the media dating back to 2005. According to a copy of a letter from Perkins to the HP board explaining his sudden resignation, and republished on thesmokinggun.comâs Web site (a sure sign, if ever there was one, that youâre in the PR doghouse), HP hired outside companies to obtain personal phone records of board members using âpretextingâ (thatâs âsocial engineeringâ to you and me), in which a private investigator impersonated board members to obtain details of private phone company billing statements. In his letter, Perkins says he has proof that his own phone records were âhackedâ in the investigation. Those investigations ultimately fingered George Keyworth, an HP director since 1986, as the source of information about board deliberations and other confidential information, which were leaked to the media without authorization. Keyworth acknowledged he had leaked information at a board meeting on May 18 but refused the boardâs request to step down. Perkins announced his own resignation at that meeting, citing âpersonal frustrationâ with board Chairwoman Patricia Dunn over the handling of the leak investigation. In the meantime, the dispute has spilled over into the public domain. The attorney general of California asked HP to supply information about the leak investigation. The SEC has also been in touch over the 8-K filing HP made when Perkins resigned. HP believes its disclosures in May were âaccurate and complete.â In an Aug. 31 meeting, HPâs board of directors determined that Keyworth shouldnât be nominated for another term on the board.
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By Pete Carey and Therese Poletti, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  Sep. 21--As the uproar has grown over Hewlett-Packard's investigation of  boardroom leaks, there has been an island of silence surrounding HP's chief  executive, Mark Hurd.
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By Jordan Robertson  SAN JOSE, Calif. - Hewlett-Packard Chairwoman Patricia Dunn took the fall Tuesday after admitting she authorized an investigation that relied on "inappropriate techniques" to uncover who was leaking boardroom secrets to the media.
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A former Hewlett-Packard Co.   HPQ.N board member has asked U.S. prosecutors, as well as   U.S. trade and communications regulators, to review an HP   investigation in which directors' and journalists' private   phone records were accessed.
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By MICHAEL LIEDTKE  SAN FRANCISCO - Hewlett-Packard Co.'s early efforts to plug a boardroom leak targeted the phone records of then-Chief Executive Carly Fiorina, according to a person familiar with one of the investigations looming over the computer and printer company.
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Hewlett-Packard Co.'s board of directors yesterday called an emergency meeting for Sunday as a scandal involving spying on board members and journalists escalated and prompted Chairman Patricia C. Dunn to say she would step down if asked.
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By Jordan Robertson  PALO ALTO, Calif.  --  Hewlett-Packard Co. shoved Chairwoman Patricia Dunn off its board Friday, severing its ties to the leader whose efforts to plug a media leak metamorphosed into a spying scandal that has spawned criminal and congressional investigations.
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By PETER SVENSSON Associated Press  The practice now is more widely known, thanks to the Hewlett- Packard scandal.   NEW YORK -- Although the boardroom scandal at Hewlett-Packard Co.
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JUST IN At a press conference in Palo Alto, Calif. Friday, Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd addressed the issues surrounding the investigation into a boardroom leak, saying former chairwoman Patricia Dunn is fully resigning her post from the board. More coverage of this latest development coming shortly.
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The Hewlett-Packard scandal revealed much about corporate spying. But boardrooms are still defining the ethical boundaries.
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SAN FRANCISCO -- Investigators for Hewlett-Packard Co. sought private telephone records of board members while trying to figure out which director leaked confidential company information to the media, the computer maker disclosed in a regulatory filing Wednesday.
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(InfoWorld) - Embattled Hewlett-Packard chairman Patricia Dunn told an appreciative audience in San Francisco Wednesday night that she looks forward to the opportunity to "set the record straight" regarding allegations that she oversaw anÂ internal investigation of the companyÂ which may have broken the law. Dunn made the remarks during a previously scheduled event where she was inducted into the Hall of Fame of a group of San Francisco Bay Area government and business leaders. An audience of about 800 people at The Westin St. Francis hotel on San Francisco's famed Union Square, gave Dunn a standing ovation. "All I will say about the maelstrom ofÂ  recent unwelcome attention is that I look forward eagerly to the time in the near future when I will be permitted to set the record straight," she said. Dunn was honored by the Bay Area Council for her success in business and her philanthropic work. Besides being chairman of HP, she was vice chairman of Barclay's Global Investors. Dunn also is on the board of a nonprofit program helping troubled youth in San Francisco and a program for providing health care to the poor in Oakland, California. The audience was largely supportive. "I think she was courageous" to appear, said Lynette Busby after the speech while her husband, James, added, "she hasn't been convicted of anything and in America that's important. She is a very forthright person." But there was some criticism. "I think it's unbelievably arrogant of [the council] to select her when she is under anÂ egregious cloud of suspicion," said one local attorney who declined to be identified. Even though she was chosen for the Hall of Fame before the scandal broke, the honor should have been withdrawn, he said. She and others involved are accused of "doing things that are contrary to the best values of America." Dunn also tried to make light of her situation. While she said she wanted to set the record straight, she added, "and in the meantime it wouldn't hurt if the pope would continue to make controversy." Dunn is one of several people who have agreed to appear at aÂ Sept. 28 hearingÂ of a House Subcommittee probing allegations that HP hired private investigators to determine which of its board members were leaking news of board deliberations to the media. The investigators allegedlyÂ obtained private phone recordsÂ of board members, some HP employees, and reporters under false pretenses to determine the source of the leak, a tactic called pretexting. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is considering federal legislation to outlaw pretexting. California Attorney General Bill Lockyer is investigating the possibility ofÂ filing state chargesÂ against people implicated in the scandal. Dunn was forced to announce Sept. 12 that she will resign in January from the chairmanship of the HP board, although she will remain a director, amid news reports about her role in ordering an investigation of the board media leaks. She has stated she did not know outside investigators were using pretexting and that she kept a distance from the investigation, but a Wall Street Journal article Wednesday, based on an internal HP report, indicated she may have been more involved in the probe than she indicated earlier.
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Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) has submitted thousands of documents to a House subcommittee looking into how the company tracked down boardroom leaks.