The question I have is this: Would HP still be collapsing and skirting with single digit stock price if Hurd had never been fired?
I remember Oracle’s Ellison writing that by their decision to fire Hurd, HP’s board had made the second worst personnel decision in corporate history (the first, he said, was when Apple’s board fired Steve Jobs).
Could Hurd have kept HP rolling, or was it inevitable. Normally, I would say that one person cannot save a major corporation with so many problems. The counter-example, of course, is Steve Jobs turning Apple around just weeks before it went tits up (according to the legend, at least). But then again, Steve Jobs WAS Apple, while Hurd was just a very talented spreadsheet guy.
