3 ms·

> help update the nearly irrelevant office-supply manufacturer Excuse me? HP was the leading computer platform for the Oracle database at the time. They might

> help update the nearly irrelevant office-supply manufacturer Excuse me? HP was the leading computer platform for the Oracle database at the time. They might indeed have made a lot of money from printers & supplies, but they also had a big hardware business that became Agilent. In about 1987, I visited HP in Wokingham, England for 3Com to talk about an email deal, and in ~1994 in Fort Collins, CO for OpenView. It IS true that Fiorina wrecked a great company. They were always great people to work with, whatever else they were.

ngc248 4y ago
>>> but they also had a big hardware business that became Agilent. They spun-off the hardware testing business as Agilent. The servers, networking and storage business stayed with HP until 2015 when the split happened. After the split, the servers, networking and storage business is HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprise) and the consumer hardware business is HP Inc.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  Getting the timeline right: Fiorina didn't initiate the spinoff of Agilent, but she carried it out. She took the sexier but less profitable part (the computers) and tried to juice it up with stupid mergers (EDS and Compaq), and of course those TV commercials, which impressed no one. And then followed a couple of terrible CEOs who completed the destruction she'd started. The Compaq merger was one of the most bitter proxy battles in history; they actually rented out Flint Center, a massive concert venue, to have the meeting. =============== Agilent was established in 1999 as a spin-off from Hewlett-Packard. [1] Although the decision to spin off the company's analytical instruments division pre-dated her arrival, one of her first major responsibilities as chief executive was overseeing the separation of the unit into the stand-alone Agilent Technologies. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agilent_Technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agilent_Technologies [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carly_Fiorina#Hewlett-Packard_(HP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carly_Fiorina#Hewlett-Packard_...

ngc248 4y ago

>>> but they also had a big hardware business that became Agilent. They spun-off the hardware testing business as Agilent. The servers, networking and storage business stayed with HP until 2015 when the split happened. After the split, the servers, networking and storage business is HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprise) and the consumer hardware business is HP Inc.

AlbertCory 4y ago
Getting the timeline right: Fiorina didn't initiate the spinoff of Agilent, but she carried it out. She took the sexier but less profitable part (the computers) and tried to juice it up with stupid mergers (EDS and Compaq), and of course those TV commercials, which impressed no one. And then followed a couple of terrible CEOs who completed the destruction she'd started. The Compaq merger was one of the most bitter proxy battles in history; they actually rented out Flint Center, a massive concert venue, to have the meeting. =============== Agilent was established in 1999 as a spin-off from Hewlett-Packard. [1] Although the decision to spin off the company's analytical instruments division pre-dated her arrival, one of her first major responsibilities as chief executive was overseeing the separation of the unit into the stand-alone Agilent Technologies. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agilent_Technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agilent_Technologies [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carly_Fiorina#Hewlett-Packard_(HP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carly_Fiorina#Hewlett-Packard_...