Features

Hewlett-Packard says it is making changes

The Associated Press
Thursday December 07, 2000

PALO ALTO — Hewlett-Packard Co. CEO Carly Fiorina said Wednesday the company made management changes and sharpened its focus after posting disappointing results in its most recent quarter. 

Addressing the company’s semi-annual conference for investment analysts, Fiorina said she and other HP executives will not get bonuses for the second half of this year. Also, some personnel changes, such as the retirement of the company’s comptroller, were being put into place earlier than previously planned, she said. 

HP is still on track to increase revenues by 15 percent to 17 percent this year despite the sales slowdown plaguing the domestic market for personal computers, Fiorina said.  

She said the company is better positioned in other markets and other product lines than competing PC makers who have been reporting hard times in the past week. 

Fourth-quarter earnings at HP fell a dime per share short of Wall Street expectations last month, after Fiorina had spent all year working to transform HP from a relatively slow-moving Silicon Valley institution into a nimble technology and service provider. 

Fiorina said the results had “given the management team additional energy and urgency to accomplish the goals we laid out in this journey.” 

“It is a multiyear process,” she said. “I don’t think anyone at HP believed we could take on substantial and systemic change ... and have it over and done with in 12 months.” 

She also lamented that word of her negotiations to buy the PricewaterhouseCoopers consulting company was leaked, forcing her to negotiate in public before the deal fell through. Fiorina said she has not ruled out some business arrangements with the consulting company or a similar deal with another firm. 

Shares of HP fell $3 to $32 on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, but rose to $32.38 in the after-hours session. 

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