Is that really the right question. What if you applied that to IBM? Or (god forbid) CA?

That HP has a derelict board, and has arguably had one since ‘97, is a symptom of their problem not its diagnosis. At the moment HP’s only reason for being is to be “the world’s largest IT Company in the world”. Sound compelling? Or sounds like: meh, yeah whatever. (Hint: size is not a purpose.)

Ask yourself or anyone you know several questions: When was the last time that HP had a lasting positive affect on your life? What would you and society miss most from HP if it shuttered tomorrow? What company in the world could possibly do all of the zany technological things that HP does for us? What is the most recent memorable Innovation that HP has brought to the world that no one else even thought of?

It is sad to see the board at HP breaking bad. But a supreme nerd is not going to intervene on matters of empathy with people – or society as a whole. Is it worth pointing out the Lou Gerstner was not a nerd? I think so. HP needs an idea. An idea that creates all other ideas. It needs purpose. Not the patchwork of me too strategisms that cloak all of its empty rhetoric.

For example what does it mean “to innovate faster and execute on that”? And why doesn’t a chief exec get shown the door after such a lame utterance? Or that other chestnut, “make what matters most to people”. The emptiness in these phrases has to start getting called out. Not mere credentials on a CV. Meg Whitman successfully interviewed for the wrong job. After all Gerstner would have failed the same admission test, that you are failing Meg with.

HP is not just a victim of unseemly business between Meg Whitman and Ray Lane. It has been left standing with its pants down for a decade. And your friend Steve Jobs has done more to discredit the decisions of executive after executive in the house that Bill and Dave built. Steve Jobs last era of business proved that the concept of the IT department was a crutch that rivals were resting on.

Meg made great pains to tell us that “HP matters, to California, to Silicon Valley and to the world.” If you have say your company matters… rather that simply get to the point of ‘why it will matter’, then the odds are slim that you speak the truth.

HP needs a grand challenge. It needs a reason for being. It will need a leader who will be as creative as Jobs was. Not just an operative leader, who is looking for the right ‘person to choke’. (her words not mine) And furthermore, not just a boss with CV in IT.

“Members of the Board and execs get caught in unsavory pretexting shenanigans…” your href needs repair as seen by the link below.

http://http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hewlett-Packard_spying_scandalwww.google.com/ig?hl=en

LOL. Devastating as usual!

Dude I’m sure you’re a busy guy but you should write your own regular column. Pretty sure I’m not the only one round here who enjoys your ‘lightning strike’ style around the various comments boards…

- FIrst, praise Léo:

“Leo was very wise about figuring out what HP needed to do to add value…”

- Next, damn him:

“But he did not have more important tools we needed, including operational excellence, people skills and communications skills.”

- Then, what do you know, we happen to have Meg with all the qualities Léo lacked:

“Meg has all those things … and when we looked around the board room, we realized we had what we needed right there.”

In communication terms, it’s clean, sharp, concise: a clever way not to disavow the three decisions the BoD approved. In reality, it feels a little dirty.