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There's been a shakeup on the Hewlett-Packard board of directors. Ray Lane’s exit as HP chairman gives chief executive officer Meg Whitman, the former eBay Inc. head who took over HP as CEO in September 2011, a clearer path to revive growth and get rid of years of turmoil at the world’s largest computer maker. Lane, 66, came under fire from shareholders for his role in the acquisition of software company Autonomy Plc. Two other directors left as HP, which has gone through several board upheavals in the past decade. Activist investor Ralph Whitworth will serve as interim chairman until Lane's replacement is found.
Here are 10 big developments in this story
I) Lane started leading the HP board in 2010, and faced criticism for not being vigilant enough when former CEO Leo Apotheker agreed to pay more than $11bn for Autonomy, only for Apotheker’s successor, Meg Whitman, to announce a massive $8.8bn write-down connected to the transaction last year.
II) Whitworth told shareholders at the annual meeting that they should prepare for an ‘evolution’ of the board. HP is in the process of cutting jobs and changing strategy as its PC and printer business declines.
III) The Autonomy deal capped a tumultuous decade for the company that included the ‘pretexting’ scandal of 2006, which led to the resignation of then-chairwoman Patricia Dunn. Four directors left HP in early 2011 following the ouster of former CEO Mark Hurd in 2010. In late 2011 Whitworth joined the board and director Whitman became CEO.
IV) The IT giant claimed Autonomy took steps to inflate its own value, which the Cambridge-based firm’s founder and former boss, Mike Lynch denied.
V) Media reports say Lynch said Autonomy’s disagreement with HP over alleged accounting irregularities had not damaged the Cambridge-based company’s reputation. Instead, he insisted Autonomy’s legacy would “prove itself over time” while HP was suffering an exodus of engineering talent. He said the accusations against his former company did not change Autonomy’s reputation for being a technology trailblazer.
VI) A former president of Oracle Corp., Lane failed to use his wide experience in enterprise computing to help HP’s turnaround, and his public gaffes -- including being photographed using an Apple computer.
VII) Lane resigned two weeks after investors re-elected him in a narrow majority of votes, issuing a rebuke of his oversight of the failed Autonomy acquisition.
VIII) On Monday. HP will officially launch the company's mega important new Moonshot server. The company has pinned a lot of hope on this new product.
IX) Moonshot is powered by ARM chips, the same chips that run smartphones and tablets. It is 94% smaller, needs 87% less energy, and costs half as much as similar powered Intel servers, the company said. Companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon have built large data centres and are adding thousands of servers by the day to handle the growing number of Web and Internet requests. Dell has been working on ARM servers, too.
X) HP said the role of lead independent director, held by Rajiv L. Gupta, will be eliminated. Gupta will remain on the board and eventually replace Thompson as chairman of the audit committee.
