It's often surprising in a large organization how much goes on that upper management is unaware of, either through incompetence or malice. I don't know enough a

It's often surprising in a large organization how much goes on that upper management is unaware of, either through incompetence or malice. I don't know enough about the specifics of this situation, but sometimes "everyone" knows that a product isn't going to ship in time, but maybe the product manager doesn't want to broadcast this fact for fear of his job. If his manager is asleep at the wheel, this kind of thing can happen. I'm guessing that the new CEO simply did something the previous CEO didn't do: ask the right questions.