HP board meet to decide future of CEO

HP board meet to decide future of CEO
HP, could be changes ahead

The board at HP have been meeting up to discuss the future, if any, of the company's CEO Leo Apotheker.

This is according to Bloomberg, which is quoting 'sources close to the matter'.

Although Apotheker is not even a year into the HP job, the CEO has announced a number of proposed changes to the company that effectively take HP out of the hardware game and into the software market.

Such sweeping decisions weren't taken lightly by shareholders and, because of this, the company's board has been meeting to discuss whether or not Apotheker should stay as CEO.

CE-go?

If Apotheker is ousted, then the likely candidate for the position is former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

Given that shares in HP dropped by 47 per cent after the company acquired UK software makers Autonomy (as this showed HP's apparent intent to go software only), it is clear that something needs to be done to bring back confidence.

With news of the possible change at the top, shares rose by 6.7 per cent.

HP proved that it can still sell hardware in August, when it significantly dropped the price of its discontinued HP TouchPad tablet range.

At a price of £89, demand for the tablets was unprecedented and prompted HP to begin selling more of the range but at a higher price.

Via Bloomberg

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.