Fiorina out at Hewlett-Packard

from Rachel Konrad of AP:

Carly Fiorina's nearly six-year reign at Hewlett-Packard Co. ended Wednesday as the company's board forced her out as chief executive, disappointed by her efforts to make the technology giant whose strongest business is printers more nimble and innovative. HP shares surged 7 percent.

Board members said they fired Fiorina, one of corporate America's highest ranking female executives, because she failed to execute a planned strategy of slashing costs and boosting revenue as quickly as directors had hoped.

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One recalls the conflict over the Compaq acquisition. One of the lead dissenters was HP director Walter Hewlett, the son of one of HP's late co-founders, who argued that HP was overpaying and couldn't afford to risk the difficulties of combining the two companies.

Note this change occurs after the Wall Street Journal had announced an HP "milestone" in computing technology concerning nanotechnology. Some Wall Street analysts have been suggesting that shareholders might be better off if the company were split into two or more pieces because the relatively dowdy printer business was sucking up resources and shifting focus from higher-profit opportunities in consulting services and areas of emerging technology.