http://gawker.com/5349555/carly-fiorinas-iran-problem

Fiorina’s having a rough time of it. Her latest problem: defending herself against charges that HP made loads of money during her tenure by selling its products in Iran despite a U.S. trade embargo. “To her knowledge, during her tenure, HP never did business in Iran,” Fiorina’s campaign told the San Jose Mercury News.

After the SEC noticed the prevalance of HP products in Iran, it asked the company about the matter, and got back a letter from the company saying its Dutch subsidiary sold $120 million to Iran in 2008.
Finally, in January 2009, HP severed ties with Redington Gulf, the distributor that had publicly bragged about its Iran trade six years earlier.

That why I posed the question to you because you seem to have the inside tech experience. I have no details, just a summary viewpoint I’ve heard from others.

Thanks for your input too, mp. That’s why I sometimes throw out such a question —> to be better informed!

Frankly yes I would disagree. Look at her results.

* She recommended the spin off of a division of AT&T that became Lucent.
* She later was brought on board Lucent to manage it.
* In the space of her tenure shareholder value dwindled.
* End game, Lucent got bought by Alcatel. It is now a former shell of itself.

* Brought on board with HP.
* Proceeds to consummate a merger with Compaq.
* Proceeds to sell off the Medical Systems division.
* Proceeds to down play the Instruments division. (Where HP started I might add.)
* Compaq merger goes terribly wrong. Compaq is demoted to a brand, yet half of the HP laptop line is still a Compaq product.
* Again shareholder value becomes devalued.
* Pretexting scandal.
* Dismissed by the board.

She is a very smart woman. But the track record is not stellar. To be fair not all is necessarily managerial issues. Bell Labs as a spin off? Seriously BL was not meant to be a product source. So when it floundered I was not surprised. The HP problems were not all of her making either. The PC market was beginning to crater at the time she was taking the helm. She also had the old boy network to contend with in the company. Nor could she ever realign the power of the divisions in regards to their profit alignment to customer sales. No previous CEO was able to either.

Just my view having been a customer of both firms over the years. A CEO’s performance is a matter of shareholder value and EVA.

Carly claiming to be responsible for setting HP up for success would be like Carter claiming that he set up Reagan for success. Making decisions is one thing, having the wherewithal to see them implemented and carried out successfully is another. That is where Carly fell flat. The board members that fired her are smart business people and wouldn’t have fired her if she was doing a good job. They simply couldn’t take any more the BS and antics she threw up to avoid responsibility for being a total failure on the operational side of the business. If she was as good a CEO as she claims she would have been snapped up by another company very quickly.

As they say in Texas, Carly is all hat and no cattle. I guess she’ll be right at home in the Senate if she is elected.

Harmer, on the other hand was a candidate who was earnest, ran a personable, grass-roots campaign, was the decisive “winner” in the debate and lost by a 10+ point margin to Garamendi in the electin. So much for hosting all those good qualities. The majority just doesn’t care!

California is almost impossible territory for a true-blue conservative to win. There are just too many special interest groups leaching from entitlements here —> Unions, illegals, govt. employees etc.

I am way east of the fault over here in NC. I will leave the light on for you. Don’t be late leaving.